Khara Per­sad

You're such a Scrooge!What a Grinch!

Any­one show­ing the faintest signs of dis­like or even ap­a­thy to­ward Christ­mas is jok­ing­ly re­ferred to as Ebenez­er Scrooge, Charles Dick­ens' clas­sic an­ti-hero from A Christ­mas Car­ol, or the Grinch–the mean, green, hairy crea­ture from Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christ­mas.These char­ac­ters "saw the light" in the end and em­braced the jolli­ness, but re­al­i­ty is, some peo­ple sim­ply aren't in­to Christ­mas, in­clud­ing the sec­u­lar, athe­ist, and re­li­gious.Here are some views from peo­ple who have opt­ed out of Christ­mas.

Don't call me a Grinch

Tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er and writer Pao­lo Ker­na­han said life in the me­dia for­ev­er ru­ined Christ­mas for him.He said: "Work­ing as a jour­nal­ist, I of­ten had to work many Christ­mas days. It was very dif­fi­cult to see oth­er peo­ple and all of their mer­ry-mak­ing while I was stuck in an of­fice or, worse, forced to do sto­ries about how peo­ple cel­e­brate the sea­son."Ker­na­han, who is Catholic but "not par­tic­u­lar­ly de­vout," has noth­ing to do with it any more."Now I can­not bear to hear any Christ­mas mu­sic and typ­i­cal­ly change the ra­dio sta­tions play­ing any sort of sea­son­al mu­sic. I don't put up Christ­mas trees nor any oth­er dec­o­ra­tions. I cer­tain­ly don't do any shop­ping. A life in the me­dia un­for­tu­nate­ly ru­ined this time of year for me."Be­fore feel­ing this way, Ker­na­han said Christ­mas was a time to lime with loved ones."Christ­mas for me was prin­ci­pal­ly about spend­ing time with friends and fam­i­ly. There is some­thing very unique about the way in which Trinida­di­ans cel­e­brate Christ­mas. It is dif­fi­cult to de­scribe but the sort of vibe you get when you are mix­ing with friends and fam­i­ly is very spe­cial."

Even though Ker­na­han is self-em­ployed, his doc­u­men­tary mak­ing still re­quires him to work on pub­lic hol­i­days."My last work­ing Christ­mas Day was last year. I did not take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that when you work for your­self, every day is a work day. I've worked Sun­day to Sun­day for the past five years, so I kin­da numb to it now. For me, too much time has passed with­out ho­n­our­ing my favoured pas­time of the 'Christ­mas lime.'"It's not that I'm a Grinch or any­thing, I want peo­ple to en­joy them­selves, I just don't want to know about it."

Rit­u­al vs Re­li­gion

Writer and colum­nist with the T&T Guardian BC Pires said Christ­mas to him meant per­form­ing mean­ing­less rit­u­als, com­pa­ra­ble to any oth­er re­li­gious hol­i­day."Christ­mas doesn't have any re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance for my fam­i­ly. But we cel­e­brate the fes­ti­val it­self, the same way we light deyas for Di­vali and drink saw­ine at Eid. The rit­u­al is emp­ty, but it's pleas­ant, and it's some­thing we do as a fam­i­ly."Still, Pires in­dulges in a spe­cial Christ­mas break­fast, a habit born out of once hav­ing to pro­tect his chil­dren's be­liefs in San­ta Claus."I have my own rit­u­al­is­tic Christ­mas break­fast of choco­late bis­cuits and milk, a hang­over from the days when my chil­dren were young enough to be­lieve in San­ta Claus and I had to fin­ish the bis­cuits and milk we left out for him on Christ­mas Eve." Pires said his chil­dren ob­vi­ous­ly be­came more re­al­is­tic as they got old­er."We don't leave bis­cuits out for San­ta any more, since our chil­dren are old enough to know that San­ta Claus, like God, is a love­ly sto­ry for kids, but ex­treme­ly un­like­ly in re­al­i­ty."

FYI: 'Christ' was nev­er in 'Christ­mas'

Al­though Je­sus' birth is cel­e­brat­ed every year on De­cem­ber 25, the Bible gives no hint about the spe­cif­ic time of year he was born. The New Tes­ta­ment gives no date or year for Je­sus' birth ei­ther. The ear­li­est gospel, writ­ten about 65 CE, be­gins with the bap­tism of Je­sus as an adult, which sug­gests the ear­li­est Chris­tians lacked knowl­edge about his birth­day.Beu­lah Latch­man, who iden­ti­fied with Chris­tian­i­ty but more so de­scribed her­self as a be­liev­er in the Mes­si­ah, does not cel­e­brate Christ­mas for this rea­son, de­scrib­ing it as a "pa­gan fes­ti­val." "Je­sus was not born on that day," she ex­plained. "The Bible says noth­ing about Christ­mas or a birth­day. It com­mem­o­rates his death."Added to that, as the sto­ry goes, there were shep­herds in Beth­le­hem who were out­side tend­ing to their flock of sheep when Je­sus was born in a manger. Latch­man said that was not pos­si­ble be­cause of the weath­er at that time of the year."It was win­ter in Beth­le­hem. It was too cold for shep­herds to be sleep­ing out­side with their sheep, or sleep on cold, open fields at night."Schol­ars have point­ed that out, sug­gest­ing it was more like­ly Je­sus was born dur­ing fall or late spring, when it was warmer.Latch­man said she used to ex­change gifts with fam­i­ly and friends, but gave up that tra­di­tion com­plete­ly. Still, she con­fessed to hum­ming along to Christ­mas car­ols on the ra­dio now and then.

Sig­nif­i­cance of De­cem­ber 25

In an­cient Rome, De­cem­ber 25 was cel­e­brat­ed as the day of the win­ter sol­stice as well as the last day of Sat­ur­na­lia, dur­ing which peo­ple feast­ed and ex­changed gifts. The Ro­man church for­mal­ly cel­e­brat­ed De­cem­ber 25 in 336 CE, when Chris­tian­i­ty be­came the of­fi­cial re­li­gion of the em­pire. His­to­ri­ans have spec­u­lat­ed that choos­ing this date had the po­lit­i­cal mo­tive of weak­en­ing the es­tab­lished pa­gan cel­e­bra­tions. Em­per­or Con­stan­tine man­aged to blend pa­gan sym­bols and rit­u­als in­to Chris­tian­i­ty, ef­fec­tive­ly con­vert­ing pa­gans to the re­li­gion.