The reasons for the season

Reason 1. Axial tilt.

I like this reason a lot. It's so basic. Axial tilt causes the earth to have seasons. The winter season is cold and dark, so in ancient times various cultures celebrated the rebirth of the sun god at the winter solstice. This has evolved, over the centuries, into Christmas and other December holidays.

And yet, though axial tilt is the reason that there is a winter season, and the reason behind some of the things we do during the winter season, like drape little colored lights all over everything, it is not the reason we hang stockings by the fireplace, munch on candy canes, and insist on traveling long distances at great expense and inconvenience to spend time with our relatives. I mean, maybe there's a connection, but I think there's also more to it.

Reason 2. Jesus's birthday

Don't you just love that big candy cane J? Yes, I know candy canes are supposed to be shepherds' crooks, but check out snopes.com for the details on that one. It's so goofy to have Jesus be the reason for the season, since he was born in the spring (if the Gospel of Luke can be trusted, that is, since no one really knows). And yet, if Jesus's birthday hadn't been grafted onto the existing pagan winter solstice holiday, is it likely that we would make such a to-do about Christmas? Jesus may not be the reason for the season, but he has probably had something to do with maintaining the holiday for us.

When I was a kid, my family celebrated Christmas with great gusto, but we were not religious. My father was an atheist, my mother less clearly so. We didn't go to church. I wasn't given any religious training. It made me quite uncomfortable to sing carols about "born is Jesus the infant king" etc. I felt strongly that if I did not believe in Jesus, or God for that matter, I should not be singing these songs.

Later, as an adult (a grad student in Ann Arbor), just to find out what it was all about, I started going to church. First Presbyterian had a fabulous music program and a very intellectual minister, who liked to quote from New Yorker articles and the writings of people like Annie Dillard. During these years, my "religious period," I enjoyed Christmas a lot. I acquired an Advent wreath and started my own tradition of lighting the candles (my family had never done that). I liked the church services during Advent, the whole thing about making spiritual preparations for Jesus's birth, despite the fact that I didn't believe in Jesus (yes, he existed, but I don't believe he was God's only begotten son and all that), nor did I believe he was born in December.

(As an aside, I just finished a very interesting book by Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief, about some of the other gospels (the ones that didn't make the canon). Apparently there was quite a bit of disagreement among the early Christians about whether Jesus was a deity or not. In fact, only the Gospel of John (in the writings that made it into the official New Testament) really says Jesus was divine. The Gospel of Thomas (one of the ones that didn't make it) specifically says that the light of God is in all of us, not just in Jesus. I like that idea so much more than the standard Christian view.)

But even though learning about the Christian tradition and incorporating that into my own celebration of Christmas has been meaningful for me, I still don't think Jesus is the reason for the season. He's helped it along, he provided its current name, he's an interesting aspect of it, but he's not the whole story.

Reason 3. Family and tradition.

In my view, this comes the closest to being what it's all about.

This is a picture of my atheist father in 1981, calmly reading the newspaper in the midst of our Christmas detritus -- greeting cards, the tree, opened gifts, and even one of my famous gingerbread houses. The excess! The waste! The utter nonsense of it all!

And yet, and yet, it grips us. It calls to us. We need this. Every year, we need this. I personally need to send out 70 greeting cards and flavor all my food and drink with peppermint. You likely have other needs.

It's OK to simplify Christmas, to cut out the parts that drive us crazy. But be careful about cutting out too much. You might accidentally remove the piece that is the most important to you. Sometimes I think the stress and depression of Christmas might be one of those important parts for me. If it doesn't hurt, it isn't Christmas.

For me, the essence of Christmas is this: sitting in front of the fireplace with my mother at my parents' old house on Christmas Eve, no lights burning except those on the tree, listening to her tell the story of Christmas Eve 1945, when my father came home from the war.

My mother is gone now, my father is gone. The house has been sold. But I have my memories. And every Christmas is another chance to revisit them, on a more visceral level than I can achieve at any other time. This is why I put up the tree and bake cookies, why I spend money and time to visit what's left of my family, why I play carols and eat entirely too many candy canes.

It's to remind myself of who I am and where I came from. And to start giving my children their own traditions and memories.