Belated “Merry Christmas” to Ken

By Moristotle

[Originally published 11 years ago, on December 26, 2010]

Well, Ken [Marks], I’ll see what I can do about a few field observations in the persona you suggested of an anthropologist from an atheistic society:

I’ve spent a week in a little town in North Carolina called “Mebane.” Quaint place, an interesting mixture of country and shopping malls and ubiquitous brick structures labeled “churches,” with reports of “church activities” everyday in the local newspaper. Already, I have to tell you, I can’t read the title of the paper's “Region” section without misreading it “Religion.” The people here appear to be exceedingly superstitious.
    There have been many reports of locals’ hoping for something they call a “white Christmas.” In fact, there’s a sappy song they listen to over and over on their radios, about someone dreaming of “a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know.” There’s some strong nostalgia going on here, or something.
    In fact, it snowed overnight here in Mebane. Over four inches of the white stuff, and still coming down. You’d think that the locals would be happy now, but I’ve heard quite a bit of bitching about road conditions. Either the bitchers weren’t among those dreaming of a white Christmas, or there’s some ambivalence going on too. I’ll have to check this out.
    Everyone I’ve observed greets everyone else with the phrase, “Merry Christmas.” It seems to refer to yesterday, though, for today I’m hearing, “I hope you had a merry Christmas.”
    Not sure what “merry” means in this context. Most people look tired and unhappy, or worried. Perhaps because of another thing the paper has been reporting, something called “shopping.” The “shoppers” may be worried about what’ll happen when they can’t pay their credit card bills?
    It isn’t clear that Christmas has anything to do with religion, but the first syllable of the term seems to refer to someone called “Christ,” and some of the greeting cards I’ve seen refer to “keeping Christ in Christmas.” Maybe he’s someone (a “god” to these people, apparently) who’s supposed to help people be merry? Whatever, it doesn’t seem to be working.
    Apparently, the religious don’t expect their gods to actually be able to do anything. They presumably take some other comfort from religion, or get something else out of it, although I have so far been unable to discern what it might be. If it’s simply a code of behavior for defining who’s in and who’s out, it’s hard to say exactly what one is supposed to be in or out of.
    Christmas is a frenzied, ironically glum time, it appears.
    But I’ve only studied this for a week so far.

Copyright © 2010, 2021 by Moristotle