Secular Christmas

It’s December, and I am switching into full-time Secular Christmas Mode. For the next 3 weeks, I am going to focus (almost) exclusively on making gifts, decorations, cookies, and all the rest. I will be sprinkling glitter on pretty much anything that doesn’t move.

We are not a religious household, and I wish I had a better name for our favorite holiday than Secular Christmas, but there you are. I don’t. And since “Christmas” is the word everyone else is using, I figure I’d better just go with it.

I identified as pagan for many years, and now I think I’m too lazy to continue doing that. My husband is into meditation and believes in angels and the sentience of rocks, so we don’t have an atheist household, really. I tried for a long time to morph my Christmas around my beliefs, but it always felt a little false.

Now we just have a totally godless holiday. It’s about lights and glitter and songs, family and friends and good food. It’s about gifts and cookies and time off work. It doesn’t need to have a specific spiritual component. I can put that elsewhere in my life.

I love gift-giving (and, of course, receiving, too) and I’m striving to create a balance between the joy of gifts and my non-materialist values. Gets me thinking about work, family, money, life, and the Inter-Connectedness Of All Things.

I bought a chair recently. (Please bear with me, I promise this is going somewhere.) Now I really didn’t have this chair in the budget, but I’d been ogling it at Ikea for months, and finally I just had a spare hundred burning a hole in my bank account and went for it. And it’s nice, and I think I needed it, and I don’t regret it.

But.

It has served as a reminder to me that it’s better to use your money on experiences than objects. Christmas coming up makes me think about this anyway. There are about a bajillion things I would be buying right now, for myself and everyone I love, if I had a little bit more stable work. But the things, they weigh you down after a while, and the shine gets dull, and the rush of something new fades. But experiences last longer.

I know, this isn’t new. We all know this, right? But of course,I forget. And of course, I love having things. And I think I’ve gotten pretty good at choosing things that provide enjoyment that lasts. But I feel like I want to re-prioritize and put experiences a little higher.

To sum up, I think I should put more money/time/effort into travel. Travel for fun, for costume events, to see things, to do things, with family and without. And doing things in my home city, too.

Also, I just can’t wait for Secular Christmas!!