Merry December!

It's time for the annual dilemma of how to assert one's anti-mainstream non-religious principles without coming across like Ebenezer Scrooge in the process. I think Christmas is little more than a humbug, after all, but with the long nights, gray days, unmet expectations of "the holidays", and so on, December is depressing enough. I don't want to add to that by playing the curmudgeon.

One thing I do is to keep my mouth shut. On Thanksgiving Day, I don't grumble about all the obvious things we can't be thankful for, or question whether there's even anyone out there to thank. Personally, I try to just think about what's going well in my life, and leave it at that. Kind of like affirmations, but without the New Age dopiness.

I participate in whatever my family is doing to celebrate the holidays. Everyone's having dinner at Aunt Sarah's on Thanksgiving, then watching somebody lose a football game to someone else... so I join them. My sisters and their families are all converging on Mom and Dad's house Christmas morning to unwrap presents... so I buy gifts for the nieces and nephews, and graciously accept whatever gifts come my way. I even go to church on Christmas Eve to play the trumpet in the little instrumental ensemble my mother puts together to play carols before the service.

Since I moved out of my parents' house, I've never put up a Christmas tree or other such decorations, not even back when I still considered myself Christian. It always seemed rather pointless (and perhaps desperate) for someone living alone. But I do put lights up on the house. They're not "Christmas lights", though. I don't put them up right after Thanksgiving; I wait until the 1st of December. And I don't take them down right after Christmas; I leave them up through New Year's Eve. I'm meticulous about that. They are "December lights", and I put them up to liven up the street during the darkest month of the year. I don't celebrate Solstice (again, I'm not New Agey); I just want to keep my spirits up in the gloom.

I don't think anyone else notices when my lights go up or come down, and if they did they'd probably assume I'm just a little late about it. But it means something to me, and that's what matters.