Hand-Crafted Christmas Is Built on Ritual

The carols are playing on the Muzak at Sav-On. I’m seeing Christmas trees in the trunks of Volvos and on the backs of Cherokees. In spite of recession, we are facing the full-bore approach of Yuletide.

I’m not ready.

It isn’t the money, although this year I have none to spend, having lost my job last April in the ratcheting down of the aerospace machinery.

It isn’t the economy, though the newspaper says this is a “critical Christmas” for retailers.

And it certainly isn’t Christmas itself.

I like Christmas, now that I’ve evolved a little.

* As a child, my Christmas was redolent with a sweet, fairy-tale greed, snowy pine boughs and a hope-filled tenderness toward Santa.

Santa knew everything about me. He alone understood the yearnings of my youthful heart for possessions.

After those pagan beginnings, I passed through the hippie phase, in which I accepted gifts from my parents but disdained the purchasing of them myself; the Earth Mother phase, in which each of my large or complex gifts was either hand-crocheted, home-canned or otherwise labor-intensive; and the Christmas Rejection phase, which began with a probing introspection the year that Yuppie Food came out, around 1986.

Yuppie Food was Brie-flavored popcorn, about 30 cents worth, packed in a witty, quasi-dog chow box and costing about $8. (It’d be $12 now.) This was the perfect gift for people you needed to buy a present for, but didn’t necessarily like, such as clients. They would have a mild laugh over it, but mainly you wanted them to notice that you were clever.

There were the square egg makers, $12 (they’d be 98 cents now). When you screwed a hard-boiled egg down into the chamber, out popped a rectangular egg to slice onto your salad, which amazed your friends until they’d all seen one, which was about one week after Christmas.

My parents had by then relinquished their roles as Lord and Lady Bountiful, opting instead to play two-handed pinochle on Christmas and wait for the January sales. Then they bought camping equipment with the money they would otherwise have spent on presents, and went on six-week excursions across the country, replete with tent and Coleman lanterns.

* Two years ago, I considered my options. Were I to refuse to pulsate to the Christmas heartbeat, my friends, I knew, would accept it. They would probably even relish the freedom to strike a difficult name from their lists.

I was pretty certain that my 16-year-old son would be the hard sell, but he surprised me with a terribly magnanimous and mature “no problem.”

Then, I thought about my Aunt Margaret’s annual Christmas party where I see my cousins and their children, and they see me, and we exchange gifts, and if I never showed up again not one of them would ever call me or probably even notice. I puzzled over what social creed I was fulfilling by my rote participation.

I wondered whether, if I decided to skip Christmas, it would be OK to just hang lights if I wanted them. Could I keep the parts I liked and unload the rest? That sounded like the best method.

I thought about the years of $8 gifts and of the handmade ones. Since they were never what anyone really wanted, what was the point? If it’s the thought that counts, when would I finally admit that the thought was actually that I needed a new clutch?

What would happen if I just stopped? Life was an experiment, right? If I didn’t like it, I could try something different.

The commercial world was infested with cheer. The red-and-green M&Ms; were heaped up at the Drug Emporium, the Christmas movies were packed and the department store displays got dusty two weeks before the 25th.

I bought nothing. I baked nothing, decorated nothing and mailed nothing. “Don’t forget!” I warbled to all. “No presents, because I’M NOT GETTING YOU ANYTHING.”

I decided to have dinner at a friend’s house instead of with my parents. My friend, John, loves to host great potluck feasts. It was to be a nice change.

* It was the lousiest Christmas I’ve ever had. I felt wretched and sour. The fun stuff might have been OK to keep, I had thought, but the mindless ritual behaviors had to go. The pure opposite turned out to be true.

Right after the meal at John’s, which was fabulous, I was hit with this powerful urge to lie down on the couch and watch television while my mother clinked around in the kitchen, softly whistling a wordless tune. The couch, the kitchen, the family weren’t there. I had eaten the right foods, but I wasn’t with the right people. The meal wasn’t what it was about at all.

I accept Christmas now. Sometimes it’s still hard to see it heading straight for me like an over-dressed, loud-mouthed guest who always arrives too early for my parties.

But there grows in all of us, I now believe, a deep and primal satisfaction from ritual, and I have learned to respect the fact that I have a biological need to hear Johnny Mathis in December. So now I choose very carefully when deciding what matters and what doesn’t.

Aunt Margaret loves me. That’s why she invites me to her party every year. And if it wasn’t for her, I’d never see my cousins. My girlfriends love to bake and give their family heirloom cookie recipes for gifts. I like that too.

And I think that my son, Ben, even though he’s nearly 19, really needs to have a stocking waiting for him on Christmas morning. It was awful that year, when I didn’t give him one. I enjoy making it very special. It’s filled with curious treasures and unusual sweets I’ve collected for weeks; everything is hand-picked for him alone, and even Ben’s worldly, teen-age eyes are bright when he sees it.

His stocking must contain a bright red apple, two tangerines, a handful of nuts in the shell with just the right mix of almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and Brazil nuts. The apple must bulge in the toe, and the nuts must be dispersed throughout the little gifts, and the very coolest toy must peek out the top, unwrapped . . . because that’s what my childhood stockings were always like.

And somebody needs to care.