Cape Town - For non-believers, we make a big deal of Christmas in our house.
We do the big meal, the pretty table, the tree, the presents, the whole enchilada (or mince pie, as takes your fancy).
And to add to the merry chaos, my son's birthday falls on December 14. I have always been determined that his special day should not be conflated with Christmas, and so we do all the things we would do if his birthday fell at another time of year. This amounts to a serious round of entertaining and baking and planning.
This year two things have been added to the mix: the new Star Wars movie (this is a serious event in our lives) and the fact that my son is going to be away for Christmas for the first time.
Jak has always been a "goer-awayer" - from birth he has been impatient with restraints (that little pouch that babies go in was greeted with outraged screaming. I lasted half an hour before putting it away, never to be used again) and inclined to head for the horizon. Literally - he was a "runner", a term that only parents who have been there truly understand. As soon as he could crawl, he was away, without a backward glance. He was among the first of his circle to go off happily on a sleepover.
He always comes back for what I think of as a "love pitstop": - a hug, a meal, a conversation, downtime on the couch. Those pitstops were about 20 minutes apart when he was little. Now, almost 13, he is preparing for three weeks away on the Wild Coast before the next top up.
He is going with the family of his best friend, people who we know well, and I know he will be safe while having the beach holiday of a lifetime. And I could no more keep him home than stop the wind from blowing. So we are going to have our family Christmas dinner on December 13, and give him his gifts then.
The only thing that gave him any pause about this holiday was the realisation that he would miss the opening of the Star Wars movie. We are a Star Wars household, and this new movie has been much discussed and is anticipated with keen interest. So we have agreed that we will still go as a family - in January, when he is back from his travels. Greater love hath no parent.
All this has prompted some musing on Christmas and why it matters, and why it doesn't matter.
We use the occasion to celebrate as a family and to give thanks for summer - times of warmth and abundance and fun. Even if there is no religious imperative, it is good to pause and reflect on the things that matter - family, friends, the ties that bind.
So to us it doesn't really matter what day of the month our celebration falls. But there is still a pang that we won't be together on The Day when everyone else is theoretically celebrating. My feelings around this were brought into sharp focus by an advert for a German supermarket chain which is pulling in the views on YouTube (see link below).
In it, an old man who is without his family for Christmas pretends that he has died to get them all to come to his house for Christmas. At first I had the expected tear-jerk reaction. But then I felt uneasy. Stripped of the heart-rending visuals and stirring soundtrack, the video is rather shocking. Why should it take that level of manipulation to get a family together? And would I want that kind of desperation to be part of my family life? Not at all.
So, I am sending my boy off with genuine happiness for him. I hope I won't ever try to guilt him into staying with me when he wants to be somewhere else.
Celebration of togetherness should not have its roots in obligation. Except when it comes to Star Wars.
IOL
@reneemoodie
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