Like Crabs in a Bucket

It's a sad story. My humble little blog is just barely one day old and already there's doubt that it can be interesting enough to last. It seems that the theory behind this is based on the fact that I'm in Lubbock and therefor my blog is likely to be mostly about Lubbock or the occurances that happen therein. This is probably an accurate assumption. Based on that, we can assume that either the naysayers are correct that there is little of interest going on in Lubbock at any given time or, as one can only hope, there is much of interest going on that few people see. I will admit that it could turn out to be a difficult task to write about Lubbbock in such a way that people will keep coming back to read more. Anyone that spends 24 years anywhere, I daresay, will stop seeing the new and exciting and start to only see that which they expect to see. It seems to be some kind of tunnel vision caused by doing the same things day after day. The idea is to force yourself into new perceptions.
On that note, today I'm going to talk about something that is on everyone's mind this time of year. That's right, Christmas. Many of us spend the whole season wondering what all the madness is about, whether it is right, and whether it is worth the trouble. The eating, drinking, and gift giving is not a new thing even though we Americans seem to take it to a whole new level each year. The truth is that the Romans were doing the very same thing, this same time of year, long before the birth of Christ in a celebration attributed to one of their gods, Saturn. Apparently, in the year 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christs birthday would be celebrated on December 25th so that the Romans would be less likely to revolt against their new religion. They got to keep their gift giving and feasting and all they had to do was call it something different. So the unreasonable waste is nothing new. It was going on long before we started celebrating that which we are ostensibly celebrating this time of year. The general concensus among historians seems to be that the actual birth of Jesus most likely happenned in or around September.
The truth of the whole matter is that the Christmas holidays are not and never have been about one religion. They are about a great many different aspects of different religions from different countries all being melded into one. It happenned long ago. The yule log was a Scandanavian pagan tradition carried out to encourage the sun to come back the next year. The first Christmas Tree was decorated somewhere in Germany in the 1500s. At the time there was apparently a religious leader who thought it was a terrible and blasphemous thing. Young couples originally began kissing under Mistletoe because it was considered a sacred plant and this act was thought to bring about fertility.
Christmas was not a big deal in the United States early on. The disapproval major religions of the time along with the resentment of anything and everything English meant that early settlers did not celbrate Christmas to the extremes that we do today. It was apparently against the law to celebrate the holiday in Boston for a number of years. It was until a few big time novelists wrote books favorably talking about the holiday season that it began its comeback. In 1870 it was declared a federal holiday. There are lots and lots of other facts about Christmas out there. Spouting them off in a big list is easy and quite interesting, but it doesn't really matter.
The point is that over thousands of years we have been celebrating something this time of year. At the very least it has always been a time to see family you haven't seen in awhile, a time try to think about other people instead of yourself, and a time where the things that we do day after day don't seem so important for just a little while. Does it matter that different people believe different things about why it exists? Do we ever, instead of buying lots of things for lots of people who already have plenty, buy things or donate time for all those people who might have nothing this time of year. Or worse, do we ever think of the people who might have no one to be with this time of year. Is it our responsibility to help them? Maybe it's not necessarily a responsibility, but at the very least it's something we should remember to think about.
The whole season seems to have turned into a huge mass of wants that are presented to us at every turns as needs. I don't need a new car, tv, computer, or ipod. I may want these things, but they are not needs. I already have the things I need. I have food to eat, a place to live in that's warm and dry, a job for which I get paid well, a family who loves me and a wife who I love more than I could ever say. I can't claim that I have always thought about or done what I could for others who do not have all these things that I've been blessed with, but I'm trying. It's hard to get out of the habit of thinking about wants as if they were needs, but I'm trying. What I've starting thinking about a lot is that when I was a kid I remember waking up every Christmas and having presents under the tree, family gathered around, and wonderful food to eat. It was a nice feeling. What is not a nice feeling is thinking what it would be like if you were a kid who woke up knowing that kids all over the world were experiencing that while you were experiencing none of it. You wouldn't need it, but you would definately notice the lack of it before you were old enough to understand that. Or what if you were an elderly person who's family all lived far away and you were home alone. You might have old memories to comfort you but you would wish for new ones. What if you had no family. What if you had nothing.
I don't feel guilty for the things I have. I don't feel responsible for other people not having those things. What I do feel is that the act of giving, in it's purest state, is manifested by the gift of something from someone who can afford it to someone who needs it. We should give because we can and because so many can't. Maybe it's time instead of money. Maybe it's a hug instead of a toy. Maybe it's a book to increase someone's knowledge. Maybe it's a homecooked meal or a ride to the nearest bus stop. Maybe that guy asking for gas money to get his family to the nearest town actually needs the money for just that purpose. What people do with the gift is their responsibility. This season should be a reminder to us not to do these things just for a short while, but to do these things as much as we are able. It should remind us that wants are not necessary, needs are things that you cannot get by without, and any kind of help from someone who has to someone who has not is the kind of thing that makes this world a place worth living in.
It's easy to preach. It's easy to have ideals. What's hard is to follow through with them. I think that the realization that I've come to is that life is too short to do things that you don't believe in when you know that you don't believe in them. If we find something that we are passionate about, regardless of what other people may think, that is the thing that we should strive for. No matter what we do there is always going to be someone who doesn't agree. It doesn't make us right and it doesn't make us wrong. We judge each other constantly but that doesn't mean that we are right to do so. No one sees the whole picture. No one knows everything. The only people that we can come close to understanding is ourselves. The real question is whether or not we believe that what we do is right, regardless of the judgment of others and regardless of the concequences. Try to remember that every day that goes by is one that you won't get back. We should try to make them count. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.