ghosts of christmas present and i want to become a pagan

our house is filling up with holiday photo greeting cards of all the cute little kids who have moved away. miles looked curiously at the photo of eva and margot and then decided he didn't recognize them. elise and nina, ditto. nina and niko are still recognizable to my children, which is nice. ben and ella, with reminders. new baby calvin i would like to get my hands on before he is holding a lightsaber. man i wish you were all closer and that your kids didn't look so huge.

and after hearing an INORDINATE amount of pre-christmas gift angst from my obsessive boy-child i have decided i want us all to become pagans. maybe maya's school with its lantern celebration (children walking with lanterns in the dark and singing in rounds end up at a spiral of greens. one by one as everyone sings "oh how lovely is the evening" they walk the spiral with a votive candle which is lit in the center by a teacher, sitting by a tree stump with candles and a big crystal on top, then they find a place for the candle in the spiral. predictably maya is one of the 15% or so of the children present who put down their candle and then leave this beautiful sight to go sing potty songs ["oh how lovely is the pooping" haha] and mess with the pine cones and evergreen boughs over in the corner. this is the school we left, sigh.) has rubbed off on me but i am wishing for a celebration like the old old OLD days, where people lit candles and celebrated trees and created altars at the winter solstice to make sure the sun would return and everyone could continue living. really, the christmas tree, the birth of the son (aha, the rebirth of the sun, interesting) and the hanuhkah candles (which miles wants to investigate next year, thinking he would not have to wait so long for presents) must all stem from these ancient beliefs. how did things get to the point of huge boxes of wrapped gifts criss-crossing around the country and kids being miserable as they count down the days to 12/25. too bad we have been sucked into the vortex of buying a bunch of crap at christmas, including lots of plastic crap for miles, who probably will not be happy with whatever he gets anyway. i am feeling frustrated with materialism and powerless before its forces. i really would like to start over with this season and go all witchy, celebrate on a beach or in the woods with nature and maybe a homeade toy or two for the kids, but with toys everywhere and commercials on bus stops and friends telling and showing my kids what they have got it feels impossible. there is my little rant. i want to be a hobbit or go live in the future in an ursula leguin book. i wish i had kept my kids from the world of material greed, but i have failed, and christmas feels like the prime example, and it makes me feel not so great.

so maybe next year around thanksgiving i will take my family up to the wilds of mendocino and tell them we are pagans now and christmas is no longer, and we can hold candles and dance around a tree. there would probably be a lot of yelling but after a while it would die down. they would probably get bored and want to watch videos on those short days with long nights, but we have plenty of those for the watching.

i don't know if we can fight the dark power of christmas present mania here in the city. what do you think? i know only the spammers are reading this blog anyway.