There is probably no time of the year when the zombie traditionalism of which I speak comes more into the fore of our awareness. It's a time during which what is meant to be a commemoration of a profoundly significant spiritual event has become the dog wagged by the tail of frantic shopping and holiday stress. We retain the form, but the spirit of Christmas has been too much replaced with the un-dead zombie spirit of consumerism.
It's a cliche to say so, but it's a cliche because it has become such a dreary feature of our lives that we are resigned to it and are tired of talking about it. It's not the whole story, of course. But it's a reality we're all too familiar with and have just come to accept as a 'given'.
If I were the cultural czar with the power to arrange the rhythm of our life as I prefer, I would retrieve the tradition of the twelve days of Christmas, those being the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. I would make Epiphany, the day commemorating the three kings bringing their gifts to the Christ child, the focus day of gift giving, and then reserve the advent season as a time of quiet, contemplation, and peace. Christmas would be a quiet day, and the festivals, concerts, and parties would begin the day after Christmas--something different everyday and in which the entire community would participate. And the festivals would close with the day of gift giving on Epiphany.
But so much militates against a quiet, peaceful Christmas. It's even stressful to go to Christmas mass in my parish because you have to get there an hour early to have any hope for a seat. Kids just love that extra hour or church time. There's no rhythm or wisdom in the way we do things now, and I'm certainly no exemplar of doing things better or differently.
It would be nice to live in a world in which meaning, peace, quiet were given to us. But that's just not the way it is. We have to make it happen somehow; we have to choose it. We have to actively 'do' meaning, peace, stillness. And that means fighting to create a space, even if it's only an interior space, where peace and the stillness of Christmas is possible even if for just a few moments.
I wish you all, Christians and non-Christians alike, good luck in being able to find a place this Christmas in which that peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding, pays you and your family a visit.