As soon as I finish writing this, I’m going to start setting up Christmas decorations. Nothing too fancy, just a tree, some spherical ornaments, and the presents that have come in so far. There aren’t going to be any exterior decorations to my knowledge, but other people certainly have put theirs up. A part of me does wonder why, especially with fewer people (supposed to be) out and about this year, there certainly won’t be as many eyeballs on light shows.
I mean, the rest of me -- the less cynical part -- gets it. They’re traditions, and better still, they’re traditions that don’t involve more people showing up and being in close proximity to each other. Maybe they are a bit silly, but they can provide stability, right? Thinking about it like that also led me down this path of separating them entirely from the reason they were started, though. Like, if this one is one we can do in the middle of a pandemic, and this one isn’t, that’s two separate qualities. That means traditions can be ranked.
I mean, that seems against the point of traditions like this also. The way it was taught to me, at least by modern media consumption, traditions are just something you do. I know that means you’re not supposed to think about them, but in that way, they do feel kind of secular, now completely divorced from the thing they celebrate. “We put lights up for Christmas because that’s what we do every Christmas” creates its own circular loop.
Again, I’m not trying to bash these things. Like I said, I’m about to do some of my own. Besides, maybe just wanting to do these things is enough. Completing a task like this, even if it is odd to think about, still provides the same sort of happiness.
-F
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