The Christmas lights came on in Edinburgh tonight at 5.45pm. The ferris wheel started to turn. The German Market opened its gates. Princes St Gardens was transformed. Less than a month until Christmas.<\/p>\n
Christmas is the single biggest event in our cultural life. As it rolls around, you\u2019re either caught up in it or \u2013 much harder – you\u2019re avoiding it. While still a spiritual\/religious occasion, Christmas\u2019 cultural importance is largely secular, crossing as many cultural divisions as possible.<\/p>\n
The secular meaning of Christmas is an uplifting one: it is a time of goodwill and generosity. It\u2019s pretty hard to fault these principles. The world could do with a lot more goodwill and generosity. Of course, Christmas as enacted in Western culture often falls short of this.<\/p>\n
In fact, our biggest cultural event is also our most compromised and unsatisfying. There are enormous problems with many aspects of Christmas: the massive consumerism that underlies the occasion is a very obvious example.<\/p>\n
So do something about it.<\/p>\n
Fix Christmas.<\/p>\n
(Now here\u2019s the breathtaking revelation. I bet it is so startlingly clever no-one reading this has ever thought it before!)<\/p>\n
Christmas isn\u2019t something mandated by the world outside your door. There are no Christmas police checking up on your adherence to evil Capitalist principles. Christmas \u2013 here\u2019s the kicker! \u2013 is something you and your family can do your way.<\/p>\n
Okay, so it isn\u2019t a huge revelation. Most people have had these thoughts before. Well, start turning thought into deed. Have a conscious Christmas, one that celebrates the values you cherish and denies the values you don\u2019t. Why not now?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s my request of you all, then: this Christmas, think about how to fix next Christmas.<\/strong><\/p>\n Over on Musical<\/a>, Cal talks about a bunch of ways to do Christmas differently. Check them out. We\u2019ve timed our posts to appear together for a reason, folks.<\/p>\n Over here, I\u2019d love to hear from people who\u2019ve already adapted Christmas to suit. Tell people what you\/you and your family\/you and your friends have done to make Christmas a time of year you savor. Let this comments section be a big ideas bucket.<\/p>\n After all, our biggest cultural festival should be a good time, shouldn’t it?<\/p>\n ————-<\/p>\n This, of course, ties in to the greater goals of the progressive movement that I’ve been rabbiting on about the last few weeks. We want everyone to be more aware of the cultural forces acting on us, and the hidden paths we are constantly skipping past unawares.<\/p>\n You and your family, or whoever you celebrate with \u2013 your Christmas is one small thing. But: journeys, single steps, think global act local, etc etc etc. In other words, it matters. Actually, it more than matters – it\u2019s the whole point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Christmas lights came on in Edinburgh tonight at 5.45pm. The ferris wheel started to turn. The German Market opened its gates. Princes St Gardens was transformed. Less than a month until Christmas. Christmas is the single biggest event in our cultural life. As it rolls around, you\u2019re either caught up in it or \u2013 … Continue reading What To Do This Christmas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-2J","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6032,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/6032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}