Cancel Christmas -- subversive idea, or one more true to meaning of holiday?

A Facebook “friend” of mine (as in someone who used to be a daily part of my life but whom I haven’t seen face-to-face in years) posted an intriguing thought Thursday – cancel Christmas and instead donate whatever money you’d have spent to a charity.

Does this sight make you feel merry as you leave (or return to) Chicago? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I’m sure there are some people to whom the very thought of “cancelling” Christmas is something they’re going to find repulsive – they’ll probably think this is part of the ongoing “War on Christmas” that they perceive because some people have the nerve to acknowledge there are other holidays of religious significance that occur around this time of year.

BUT THERE IS a part of me that does find the idea intriguing enough to wonder if it would actually be more in the spirit of Christmas to think of what you can do to make others happy – rather than the usual gift-giving orgy.

It also catches me at a holiday season which I will be the first to admit will be a bit more low-key than some Christmas celebrations in the past.

With both my brother and mother gone and my father having converted to Judaism, I don’t have immediate family with whom to get all worked up over images of Santa Claus or repeated watchings of little Ralphie wanting the BB gun, then nearly shooting his eye out, in “A Christmas Story.”

While my father and step-mother do always include me in their Hanukkah celebrations, this year is also taking a turn because of scheduling conflicts.

WHILE THEY WILL do the ritual of lighting the candles on the eight nights of Hannukah beginning Saturday night, the actual celebration where family gets together and there will be some gift exchanges is being put off until some time in January.

Even then, there aren’t any really young children in that part of the family. So watching kids get all anxious to open presents is something of the past.

So the idea of doing something of a more charitable nature is an idea swirling about my head. Although being able to pick a single charity with which to do something of significance is something I’d have to think long-and-hard about.

I suppose I could make several small donations and claim to have spread my good will around. But then I’d hear the spirit of my brother, Christopher, telling me that I’m being a cheapskate by not doing something truly significant for somebody.

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON will be a lower-key one, and perhaps that is to be expected with the passage of time. I can’t envision the holiday ever meaning as much to me in life as it did back when I was something like eight or nine years old.

So perhaps the idea of “cancelling” Christmas is something to be considered.

Although it wouldn’t truly be cancelling Christmas as much as the idea of downplaying all the trivial nonsense that is associated with the winter holidays and that we have been bombarded with by retailers since back before Halloween as they desperately try to get us to buy, buy and buy any many consumer goods as possible.

Which may make for a Very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah or a nifty Kwanzaa for retailers – whom I’ve always suspected view the holidays as something created for the betterment of their financial bottom line. They probably thought “A Christmas Carol” (everybody with sense knows British actor Alastair Sim is the only real "Ebenezer Scrooge") was a wonderful story UNTIL that Scrooge character got all soft and wimpy after being visited by all those Christmas spirits.

THE REALITY IS that the commercial atmosphere cheapens the holiday to the point where the idea of taking a pass on the consumerism almost feels like a celebration more faithful to the real purpose of these holidays.

There has to be a more serious reason for the celebrations people are going to do this weekend than whether or not my niece, Meira (she’s soon going to turn 14) actually gets the Timberland-brand boots she has been hinting at wanting for months now.

Besides, I suspect that whatever I actually wind up doing Saturday night into Sunday will wind up being more relaxing, which is something I can actually use following what has been a chaotic year.

A chance to chill out, at least until some editor somewhere makes a frantic call to me saying there’s empty space somewhere that needs to be filled, and I’d better get off my duff and write something to fill it so that an advertisement promoting post-Christmas holiday sales can be sold right next to it!

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Presidential insults; what else is new?

One of the most intriguing parts of the museum and library in Springfield, Ill., devoted to Abraham Lincoln is the exhibit showing samples of all the hostile rhetoric used to denigrate “Honest Abe” back when he was alive.

 

OBAMA: Would he let insults stop him?

With such harsh and hostile sentiments existing about the man, it’s no wonder his election resulted in people taking up arms against the nation – something that has not happened in recent years even though there are people who detest the very concept of “President Barack Obama.”

THERE HAVE BEEN so many slurs uttered by so many people of varying beliefs about Obama that I honestly have lost track of them. And it’s not just the conservative ideologues – let’s not forget the many Latino activists who voted for him but refer to him as the “deporter-in-chief” because of his inability to change the federal policies that have resulted in many individuals being removed from this country.

It is in that context that I have to admit to not getting so worked up over the recent wisecrack by Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who referred to Obama as the “drug dealer in chief.”

It was Kirk’s attempt to criticize the dealings our federal government under Obama has had with Iran, while also trying to appeal to the hard-core ideologues who otherwise might think Kirk is too wimpy to represent their interests.

 

KIRK: Merely the latest of trash-talkers

People who likely would be happier if a Trump-like person (as in spewing rhetorical nonsense about so many issues) were on the Republican ticket for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

KIRK’S CHALLENGER, DEMOCRAT Tammy Duckworth (herself a member of Congress from the northwest suburbs) has said such trash talk is unbecoming a U.S. senator. Yet there are times when I wonder if the standards for political talk have declined so much that the idea of something being unbecoming is a quaint concept.

For the record, Kirk refused to apologize during a candidate forum in Normal, Ill., on Wednesday. I suspect if he had been apologetic, the crowd would have turned on him something fierce.

LINCOLN: What president hasn't been insulted?

As though he was better off keeping his mouth shut and not causing even more damage for himself. Because we're in an era where such hostility is what passes for political talk -- why else would we take Donald Trump seriously?

Which is why I can’t get too worked up. I don’t doubt that Kirk is representing a viewpoint held by a certain segment of society – and he wants their votes. Because it’s pretty clear that the kind of people who oppose such a viewpoint will never vote for him come Election Day.

BESIDES, I COULDN’T help but notice an e-mail message I received Thursday from the Duckworth campaign. She wants to make sure we know just how offensive she thinks Kirk’s comments were. “Illinois deserves better than a senator who employs such extreme, offensive rhetoric,” her political director, Cameron Joost, wrote.

Of course, Joost then got to the point of the e-mail – the Duckworth campaign wants my money.

In fact, the e-mail was set up in such a way that I could just click on a link and make a campaign contribution. Show my outrage by kicking in a few bucks that can add up into a significant amount of money to support her election bid.

Somehow, the appeal for campaign cash comes off as just a bit crass. I have a feeling similar to that of “Ralphie” in “A Christmas Story” when he realized his newly-acquired Little Orphan Annie decoder ring was just a means of sending messages advertising Ovaltine.

“A CRUMMY COMMERCIAL!,” he said, before uttering an epithet that would have got many of us a bar of soap in our mouths from our mothers.

So much for the noble appeal to our higher ideals. Not one likely to get me to reach into my wallet, because like I’ve said before hostile political rhetoric is oh, so common. If Obama is a big boy, he can take it.

Besides, the kind of people who indulge in such trash talk wind up invariably hurting themselves my coming off as so lowbrow.

And in the end will come off making those people look as ridiculous as those who tried to label Lincoln as, “Abraham Africanus the First.”

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