Losing My Christmas Spirit

Current Christmas mood

The past few years of my life have been full of Christmas spirit, mostly because of parenthood. It's been a truly great thing to vicariously experience the holidays through my kids and to remember my own Christmases. I was a misfit in school growing up but I was lucky to have a very warm and loving family that made celebrating Christmas fun.

For some reason this year I am not feeling the spirit. Thanksgiving weekend will come and go without us putting out our decorations. My wife is feeling the same ennui, and our children's enthusiasm is not enough to shake us out of this.

After some reflection I think this has to do with Christmas on the meta level. Once you strip away both the consumerism, it is a holiday about hope. On the pagan level, it is the hope for the spring to arrive as we sit in the depths of winter darkness. On the more Christian level it is the hope that the birth of Jesus, savior of the world, represents. Christmas means that the broken world can indeed be saved and a kernel of that exists in even its more secular permutations. In recent years that hope has probably had a lot to do with my increased Christmas spirit, even if my children's zeal is the primary factor. In fact, the two intertwine because nothing forces me to think about the future and nothing absorbs as much of my hope as my children do. 

I think my loss of Christmas spirit reflects, deep down, my profound pessimism in this moment. In world affairs the dominoes keep falling, from Poland to Bolivia. In this country evidence that the despot has committed high crimes is out in the open and it will not lead to his removal. The 2020 election will be marred by voter suppression, disinformation, foreign meddling, and the reality that the electoral college will very likely preserve minority rule. (This is currently my prediction, btw). The world is burning up and apart from people posting Greta Thunberg memes little to nothing is being done to stop it in this country. In fact, our government's policies are hastening the apocalypse.

So what is there to look forward to? I think of the world my children will inherit and am filled with the deepest sense of helplessness and sadness. The last handful of Christmases I knew things were bad but I could still take heart in the promise of the holiday. Maybe I will eventually get there this year, but it will take some doing.

Guided By Voices, "Motor Away"

[Editor's Note: I am so tired and burnt out right now that I am going to be aiming small for awhile here. It's high time I brought back The Track of the Week, which gives me great pleasure.]

There is some music I love that I don't listen to enough. 1990s indie rock definitely falls into that category for me. Why? Well that's the music I associate with being "my" music in my formative years in the 1990s, years when I thought my generation was unique and was going to make a difference. Instead, we turned into an afterthought between the Boomers and Millennials. I am now fairly certain that there will never be a Gen X president. Listening to 90s indie rock is always a reminder of the stupidity and short-sightedness of my youth.

And yet, it is so good, and reaches me so deep. One of those songs is "Motor Away" by Guided By Voices, a group that specialized in songlets rather than songs. At two minutes and seven seconds, it is the fourth longest out of 28 (!) songs on the Alien Lanes album. They are all about feel, and "Motor Away" has such a great feel to it, it perfectly describes the small elation I get driving down the streets in winter time, longing for any kind of escape, no matter how small. The song drives forward clankily, like the hail-damaged 1990 Honda Accord I drove way too far into this century. It's a life-affirming song, one I often turn to in these dark days of winter.

Two days ago I was bringing my daughters home from aftercare, and this song came on. One of my daughters got excited and asked me what it was, since she really liked it. "My music," the music of my generation and my youthful hopes was being embraced by my own daughter without me even trying to push it on her. This music, so reminiscent to me of a bygone time, was fresh and fun in my daughter's ears. In a tough and grueling week, her enthusiasm was exactly what I needed.

On Watching The Wizard Of Oz With My Daughters

About a month ago my mother-in-law got us a copy of The Wizard of Oz on blu-ray, and my wife and I decided to show it to our four year old twin daughters, but with some trepidation. What if they didn't like it?

For my wife and I this is a magical movie. Its magic is related to its scarcity in our youth, which made viewing The Wizard of Oz a special thing. In our pre-VCR early childhoods she actually had it on 8 track, and watching it can still locate the moments where the tracks ended and the tape had to be flipped. Like so many others of my generation, I made sure each year to catch the one time annually that it was shown on television. My sisters and I would gather in front of the television to repeat a ritual that began around the time of my first firm memories. (I probably saw the movie for the first time at the same age as my daughters did.) One year they showed a little documentary afterward, and it was amazing to see Margaret Hamilton as a sweet old woman talking about her characterization of the witch. Instead of ruining my suspension of disbelief, it made me love the film that much more.

Luckily for us, my daughters love it too, and they even jump in a big basket and pretend that they are taking a hot air balloon to Oz. We've already had a repeat viewing, rare for a full length feature film for my daughters.

While it makes me so happy to share the film with my daughters, I have not been prepared for the other emotions that it stirs up. The first time we saw it together, I lost it when Dorothy started singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." It is a real tear jerking song, and Judy Garland invests it with such emotion, but it had never made me cry before. Sitting there on the couch with my wife and daughters I was reminded of growing up lonely on the plains of Nebraska (as opposed to Kansas), my many years in the romantic wilderness, and those years spent wandering the academic landscape for a job warding off depression the whole while. For decades I had spent my time looking to be somewhere else, whether because I was in school preparing to fly, or I was in a crummy job or a place I liked but only employed temporarily. It took a long time for me to finally land, and the precariousness of my good fortune is something  I remind myself of each day. My daughters fill me with wonder every day, the greatest reason for living I've ever had. Coming to the realization there on that couch was overwhelming.

As hard as "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" hit me, that was a light shower compared to the hurricane at the end of the movie. The scene when Dorothy has to say good-bye to her new friends used to really get me even when I was a child. Now? Positively deadly. She has to go home, but that means leaving behind the best friends she's ever had. This time around the crying started, and it was so intense that I started to get a sharp, stabbing pain in my forehead, which only happens when I am trying to keep from becoming a sobbing mess, a sensation I've had on maybe half a dozen occasions in my adult life.

In my years spent learning to fly or in my wanderings through the academic wilderness, I met a lot of truly amazing people. They're pretty much the reason I was able to survive. Between graduating college in 1998 and landing in New Jersey in 2011, I moved five times, and in each place met so many people who I still hold close to my heart. All those moves meant saying good-bye to all of them. As happy as my family makes me, I've yet to meet anyone like those people here. So I cried, weeping for the all the people I wish were near me but now live so far away. Like Dorothy, I was able to come home, but it meant abandoning my friends. It has not been easy, but I look into the eyes of my daughters, and I remind myself there's no place like home.

Notes On A Quiet Saturday Morning

There is an eerie quiet in my home this misty Saturday morning.  My daughters stayed over with my in-laws last night so that my wife and I could go out on a much needed date.  Things seem thrown all out of kilter.  I actually managed to read the Saturday paper, something that was a singular pleasure of mine in my former, pre-parent life.  Nowadays I end up having to throw half of it away without having read it, my attempts interrupted by little voices asking for something, wanting to play, or me looking up to see my daughters about to deface something with a Sharpie or put stickers on the wood floors.

I ate a simple breakfast, but I could savor it without having to hear the strands of Peppa Pig or similar entertainment in my ears, or without assembling a breakfast for my daughters and pleading with them to actually eat it or not get it all over the table. Instead I'm playing an old favorite folk-rock record (Rod Stewart's Gasoline Alley, to be precise) and feeling something on a Saturday morning I haven't felt in so long: relaxation. My wife is sleeping in, enjoying the opportunity for once.

In my younger days, I never felt more at peace at any point in the week than I did on Saturday morning. My shower washed the working week off of my back, and the next Monday morning was still a rumor.  When I lived in Michigan I had a well-developed practice of walking two blocks to buy a copy of the Times, then strolling a few blocks more to a diner, where I would read the paper while quaffing coffee and devouring corned beef hash or some similar concoction.  I'd then walk home, totally at peace.

There are the days when I long for the boredom of youth. Long stretches of empty time are actually good for the soul. My current day to day existence resembles a kind of spiritual trench warfare. I get up at 5AM, wake my daughters up (or at least start them stirring), get dressed, and then walk the dog while my wife and daughters get dressed. Right before leaving with the dog at 5:20 I get the coffee going, and when I get back, I feed her and get breakfast ready for my daughters as my wife helps them get dressed. They come downstairs at about 5:35. I eat with and supervise them while my wife prepares their stuff for school. Then my wife comes out of the kitchen for her breakfast about 5:50 while I put shoes on the girls, brush their hair, and make sure they don't have yogurt all over their faces.  I am often unsuccessful in the latter endeavor.

About 6:05 we get up to leave, with varying levels of resistance from my daughters. We walk down the back steps, with varying levels of resistance, then strap them in their car seats, also with varying levels of resistance.  At 6:10 we back out of the driveway, so that I can be dropped off at the train station at 6:18 so I can catch my train that picks me up at 6:22. My wife then drives the girls to preschool before going to her own job.

We've managed to perfect the routine to the point that it rarely fails to get us all out of the house when we need to be.  But man is it exhausting, and after it I still have to do my arduous commute, great but demanding job, and then another duel with the New York commute on the way home. Sitting here writing a blog post (which usually only happens after dark) while slowly drinking coffee and listening to old records in the morning light is so astounding to me that I can barely believe that I am actually experiencing such a once mundane thing.

And yet.

I am desperate for my wife to wake up.  I so so badly want to get in the car and pick my daughters up from the their grandparents.  Being in this home without them feels wrong.  I want to see their smiling faces, I want to build Lincoln Log cabins with them. I want to watch old Batman episodes and play around in the sandbox. Before being a parent I did not know I was even capable of these feelings. As much as I can appreciate the taste of my former life I'm getting this morning, I wouldn't trade what I have now for anything.

Being A Parent Makes Me Both Hate And Love Christmas More

After yesterday's consumerist orgy it's time for some preaching by Reverend Billy

One of the biggest cliches in the book is that parenthood changes everything, and it's a cliche because, well, it's true.  In many ways this is obvious.  I usually subsist on six hours of sleep a night, and have cleared the eight hour mark maybe a dozen times in the last three years, usually only when I was too sick to sleep less than eight hours.  Smaller things have changed too, like Christmas.

Through most of my adult life, Christmas was pretty ho-hum. With two three year old girls, that has changed drastically, and Christmas has become a lot more significant in my life.  In many respects, this has meant that I love Christmas the way I loved it when I was a child.  My daughters take such joy in the Christmas season, from the songs to the gifts to the time with family.  It's very difficult for a lot of that not to rub off on me.

At the same time, however, it is extremely difficult for me not to develop great levels of hate and resentment against Christmas.  The Christmas season is perhaps the biggest reminder I have of how much power the broader society has in shaping my daughters and how hard it is for me to instill the values I want to impart.  In the first place, the consumeristic side of Christmas is especially pronounced with children.  I don't know if there has been a change in this since my childhood or what, but every year my children are buried under a tide of toys and trinkets.  I blame the Wal-Martization of America, which was not yet complete when I was a tyke.  It's easy, without thinking, to buy a child a mountain of toys, since they come at dollar store prices.  They also have dollar store quality but never seem to leave the house, forming a giant mass of cheap plastic crap to take up space, be stepped on, and constantly clutter living spaces up while rarely being played with.

The people giving the gifts have great intentions, and I really don't fault them for anything, obviously.  It's more that the Christmas season injects the usual consumerist ethos with steroids. And I guess it would be a real dick move to ask that any money spent on toys just be put into my daughter's college funds.

What's harder to stomach is the enforcement of patriarchal norms.  My daughters love Star Wars and superheroes, but for those who don't know them well, they default to all manner of pink princess stuff.  My daughters practically get buried alive in it.  What is even crazier is that they get non-princess toys, like cars and airplanes and even mini-baseball bats, in special pink, girl forms.  The message is pretty clear: being a girl means having a gussied up, less realistic, less REAL version of what boys have, because deep down cars, and trucks and baseball bats are for them, not girls.

Even if they were getting gifts I liked more, the whole thing would make me uneasy because of the massive waste of it all.  The sheer scale of gifts is frightening in its extremity; so much so that we barely give them anything for Christmas because we know that the deluge is coming.  Seeing the massive pile of presents in our living room right now is actually making me feel sick at the waste and decadence of it all in a world where so many have so little.  It's not because this stuff cost so much, quite the opposite.  It's the thought that this bounty of stuff is the result of exploited labor, both in the factories where it's made and the stores where it's sold.

Beyond all that, Christmas events encourage them to get all dressed up, and what's wrong with that? Those who know me know I like to dress up.  But for my daughters, they are quickly turned into little objects, told they are pretty, etc.  There's nothing wrong with being pretty, but when that's the one thing other people want to notice about them, the patriarchy is lurking.

So now that I am a parent, Christmas is filled with vastly conflicting emotions.  On the one hand, I feel such happiness at the smiles on my daughters' faces, and the cheerfulness they showed when racing down the stairs yesterday morning.  It's great to see them interact with their extended family, especially their cousins.  On the other hand, I feel so trapped and horrified when seeing them buried under mountains of cheap crap produced by exploited labor that reinforces sexist gender roles.  Maybe next year I can develop some counter-programming.

A Thought On a Year of Fatherhood

A year ago this week my wife gave birth to two wonderful baby girls.  I haven't been writing about fatherhood much on this blog because 1. Parenting blogging is notoriously awful, no matter how well-intentioned and 2.  My kids don't need all kinds of stuff about them floating around in cyberspace that they can read later and resent me for.

However, there has been one thought on my mind the last few weeks that sums up how parenthood has changed my outlook.  If possible, I have become more pessimistic about the direction the world and this country in particular is taking.  I wonder whether the children of two teachers will have the financial resources and connections to compete in a world without a middle class.

Out of one of my speculative moods I hatched a sci-fi image of the future that I can't shake from my head.  By the time folks my age are retiring, Social Security and Medicare will be in tatters (if there at all.)  In my vision, the government will offer a large lump cash sum to the families of those people who decide to be euthanized at the age of 65, since they will save so much precious money for the system.  Now that I am a parent, I actually think that if such a future exists, I would volunteer to be put to death like Sol at the end of Soylent Green, if it would mean that my children could live life with financial security.

I know that's a crazy thought, but I feel like I would do anything I could for my children, no matter what.  That willingness to sacrifice everything for my kids pretty much embodies everything fatherhood has done to my attitude towards my life.

Parenting Dilemma: When and How Do I Introduce My Children to Star Wars?

Sometime in the next month, my wife will be giving birth to twin girls.  This event has forced us to consider all kinds of questions, from where we want to settle down to what kind of food we feed them.  Last evening my wife and I discussed a less pressing, but very difficult question: when and how will we introduce them to Star Wars?

I must say that I am amazed at the staying power of Star Wars amongst children born decades after its initial release.  I lived much of my early childhood totally immersed in the Star Wars universe, playing with the toys and acting out scenarios with my friends for hours on end.  Once we got a VCR in 1985 and they started showing the films on television, I managed to tape and watch them over and over again.  One of my sisters always recounted her favorite dream ever, which involved Han Solo landing the Millennium Falcon in our backyard and whisking her away with him.  I spent much of the summer of 1983 wearing two t-shirts: a black one that read "Beat It!" in large red letters, and a kind of powdery blue shirt with Luke Skywalker wielding a lightsaber.  The next year I gladly choked down the vile concoction that was C-3PO breakfast serial and jumped for joy when I got the Ewok village toy set for Christmas.

 I never would have thought that Star Wars toys would be just as common a quarter of a century later.  This weekend my in-laws had a backyard party at their house, and I was amazed to see one little tyke wearing shoes with C-3PO and R2-D2 on them, and another with a t-shirt depicting Yoda wearing sunglasses.  These boys seemed to love Star Wars just as much as I did when I was younger.  I once worried that my kids would think of the things I love as outdated or lame, but it looks like Star Wars is something that we could share together.  However, I am not sure how to bring it into their lives.

The question of when and how to introduce Star Wars came up after we watched Revenge of the Sith (the third prequel, for the uninitiated) last night, which my wife hadn't ever seen, despite (or perhaps because) her love of the original trilogy.  It seems she stopped watching Attack of the Clones after about fifteen minutes, thinking it to be a steaming pile of crap (can't say I disagree) and gave up on the prequels.  Conversely, both she and I like Revenge of the Sith, which I consider to be at least the equal of Return of the Jedi (perhaps that is damning with faint praise.)  I asked her whether we would introduce the prequels to our twin daughters, start with the original trilogy, or simply pretend that the prequels never existed.

From a chronological, story-arc perspective, it makes sense to start with prequel number one, The Phantom Menace.  It's not just the well-documented lameness of this flick that bugs me; however, but the knowledge that kids love Jar Jar.  I am so afraid that if I start with this film, my girls will think Jar Jar is the coolest and funniest, with his slapstick antics and muppet-like voice.  If that happens I just might have to put myself in exile in Dagobah.

My wife and I have agreed to start them with the original Star Wars (I refuse on general principle to call it A New Hope.)  It's an obvious choice, considering it's the first made, etc., but we are also especially keen on starting here because Princess Leia is such a badass in this flick.  I am already having to contend with the fact that social norms are molding my daughters into objectified beauty objects, at least based on the fact that we've been gifted all kinds of frilly pink baby clothes.  They'll need some role models, and in this movie Leia will provide a good example.  It is she who leads the rebel forces and manages to keep the Death Star plans safe.  She manages to withstand torture without betraying her people.  She refuses to play the damsel in distress, shooting storm troopers and repeatedly telling off her would be captors.  ("Into the garbage shoot flyboy," "Will someone please get this walking carpet out of my way," and "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?" are particular favorite lines in this regard.)  You can easily contrast Leia's toughness with the simpering antics of Padme/Amidalla from the prequels.  In the third installment she seems to spend most of her time doing her hair.

At this point I figure I will introduce Star Wars around age four (I really can't wait for this moment), and pretend the prequels don't exist until they ask questions or their friends say something about it.  I like the third enough to maybe make an exception.  The other thing to consider, of course, is which version of the original trilogy to show my daughters.  I only have the "special editions" version on DVD (I've got the remastered originals from the 1990s on VHS), so I should probably go out and get the non-gussied up versions on DVD, which you have to buy separately, at a premium, and which come with the special edition discs that I already had to pay for.  I rented the DVD version of the unaltered Star Wars a couple of years ago, and was blown away at how much it looked like the mid-budget 1970s film that it was.  It was liberating and glorious, and it made what Lucas accomplished in 1977 with mostly unknown actors and little studio support that much more of a creative triumph.  Of course, my daughters probably will find the CGI Jabba the Hutt more interesting.  But damn it, there are sacred things in this world, and my daughters should not live in a world where Greedo shot first.  

Children are unpredictable, and my two girls might not care about the differences between the originals and special editions, or even have any interest in watching Star Wars at all.  I'll be happiest if they can explore their own interests, whether or not I share them.  That said, I will feel a little secret sorrow if they don't like Star Wars, akin to the anguish I felt when I first saw Han Solo frozen in carbonate as a five year old.  After all, I first saw Attack of the Clones with my pops, and it was a great emotional moment for us to return to very same theater where he'd taken me to see The Empire Strikes Back those many years ago. The new film might've been shitty, but walking out of the theater with such warm memories rekindled, I don't think we really cared.