richness

I’ve been saying to people for months: “I don’t do Christmas.” If they inquire further, I expound on mindless consumerism, Eurocentric Christian cultural imperialism, the driving ethos of capitalism to convince people that buying is essential to feeling.

But this year, my housemate Diana put up a tree. In the spirit of being a good housemate, I made hot chocolate one evening and rallied my other housemates to help decorate it. Diana has boxes of exquisite idiosyncratic ornaments, from glittering pomegranates to silver spacemen, collected over years. As we unwrapped and hung them, we all became children. Dipti dashed downstairs to hunt out her sparkliest bangles, and added them to the tree. I remembered my shiny carnival masks and gave the branches masquerade faces. It was ritual, and I’ve always believed in ritual as a gateway to awareness and insight.

After we’d done the tree, I went online to research Christmas trees. I was thrilled to discover their pagan roots, to learn that they were actually banned for several hundred years by the Christian Church. A phrase I read about Christmas / solstice rituals stuck with me – that they were all intended to “evoke fire in the coldest, darkest time of the year.”

As the days went by, little packages appeared under the tree with my name on them. I thought about evoking fire in darkness. How the tradition of gift-giving might be about evoking abundance in the season of greatest scarcity. Might be the way people reassured themselves, through exchange and community, that they would not starve. That they would keep each other warm and fed until the sun returned.

Every year for the last 3 years, my friend Pablo has collected money to send to community activists in Peru, to fund Chocolatada christmas parties for desperately poor children in the shantytowns. If I have a Christmas tradition, this is it – the images of children who get to taste chocolate once a year, bought with my American dollars. If you would like to contribute to future chocolatadas, send me an email, and I’ll ask Pablo to add you to his list to contact next year.

So there I was on Christmas eve, an hour after I’d said to a friend on the phone, “I don’t do Christmas,” wrapping presents at the dining room table, whisking them out of sight when someone walked into the room. When I got up on Christmas morning, Diana had lit candles all over the living room. Filled a stocking for each one of us. Dipti, Diana and I sat around in our pyjamas, drank hot spiced cider, and opened our presents. Little things, practical things. Walborne for Diana to protect her from flu on her upcoming trip to Wales. Fluffy topaz towel for me who uses towels until they turn into dishcloths. Book on win-win negotiations for Dipti, who shrinks from bargaining for the salary she deserves. And of course, chocolate all round. We talked about our dreams for the year ahead. Dipti cooked Indian lentil pancakes for us all.

The rain put a spanner in my plans to hike with Lisa and Byron. Lisa revels in what she calls “immersion in the elements” , but the wimpier among us (Byron and I) opted for an urban hike in San Francisco, with the option of cafes to duck into. We strolled Chinatown, streets crazy-packed as always, where merchants have never heard of closing for December 25th. Climbed up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, and marveled at the Bay spread out before us. I sometimes forget the wonder of where I live – the beauty of mountains, sea, city, wilderness, all quilted together.

We sat at a pavement table at Café Puccini, on Columbus Avenue, drank chai, as fat droplets plopped off the awning onto our heads. Talked about the obscene injustice, the crazy contradictions, of our lives. That we could have a whole day like this, and take all of it for granted, from transport to food to coffee to entertainment to time to play. A day of unimaginable wealth and ease to most of the world. To the Katrina victims still living in tented refugee camps. Or even to the families crammed 10 to a room, 15 to a sink, a few blocks away in the alleys of Chinatown.

When the rain turned from drizzle to waterfall, we came back home. Another luxury; to come in from the wet and cold to dry clothes, warm house, hot tea and caramel shortcake. We watched my Christmas present from Kim, the DVD of A Huey P. Newton story, in the magical shimmer of fairy lights from the Christmas tree. It’s a one-man show, written and performed by Roger Smith, directed by Spike Lee, on the life of the co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Mindblowing performance, mind-expanding content. I’m still musing over the way he wove together politics, irony, personality, humor, electric athleticism. Not to mention his stamina in sustaining voice and character. I want to be able to do that!