L'Étranger Skipping Christmas

"Aujourd'hui maman est morte," says Meursault in the opening line of Albert Camus's 1942 novel, L'Étranger. Other people find Mersault's inability or unwillingness to cry at his mother's funeral odd. He doesn't fit in.

Mersault came to mind this season as I tried to opt out of Christmas. Opting out doesn't fit in. It's awkward. It interrupts the customary rituals of exchange. The ethos of Christmas in our culture is strong and pervasive, absorbing almost everything: religious celebration of the birth of Christ, putting up lights, trimming trees, exchanging gifts, sending greeting cards, wishing others to be merry, joyous, and peaceful. And shopping, shopping, shopping—even, for the fourth year, for items to counter the supposed liberal war on Christmas. (See "'War on Christmas' has a new jingle: money," in the Los Angeles Times.)

To find out how powerful the Christmas ethos is, try opposing it. It will seem to pull all the more sharply and often, manifest in scores of formulaic greetings in the office, in the neighborhood, in shopping malls, at parties and other gatherings. It is inescapable. You are called upon, expected, to respond appropriately. They say, "Merry Christmas," you say, "Merry Christmas." Or not, but if you don't, note the momentary confusion.

I too, finally and inexorably, got absorbed into Christmas, even while remaining detached and reflective. We attended three holiday parties, the third of which, last Tuesday evening, was thrown by a colleague at work. I enjoyed it, enjoyed the friends, enjoyed my wife enjoying it, enjoyed the food, enjoyed my detachment. We probably even seemed to others to fit in—until the moment, perhaps, of our early departure. And my wife, as she loves to do, hung wreaths on gates and walls and doors and put lights on the mantle and on several camellia bushes. Colleagues at work brought gifts around to my office, one neighbor left a nice loaf of bread in our mailbox yesterday, another brought a tin of chocolate chip cookies by last night, my wife served stollen for our "Christmas breakfast," we exchanged a few gifts this morning, even gave gifts to our poodle. We plan to go to a movie this afternoon. I'm even writing this.

Mersault was sentenced to death by an Algerian court and executed. I fall on the mercy of our local court and, somewhat belatedly perhaps, I wish you a merry Christmas.