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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

HARPER: Simplicity during the holidays

As a young lad, I was always a big supporter of the holiday season. For my money, it didn’t get any better than popping on one of Neil Diamond’s three Christmas albums, watching Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tour de force in “Jingle All The Way” and giving my mom lame gifts like a gingerbread man with my school photo glued onto it.  Because the winter season offered so many distinct holidays to celebrate — Christmas for Christians, Hanukkah for Jews, occasionally the Islamic New Year for Muslims, Kwanzaa for Africans and Boxing Day for Sylvester Stallone — there seemed to be a universal sense of joy everyone could partake in.

Each year, however, I have grown increasingly wearier of the holiday season. It probably dates back to elementary school when a forthright friend of mine told me Santa Claus is not real. Since then, it has pretty much been downhill.

After Santa was exposed as a fraud, it soon became apparent that it was no longer cute or appropriate to make my Christmas presents in elementary school art class. I had to go to the mall and bump shoulders with adults who looked completely miserable and burdened by the task of purchasing gifts and preparing to host their extended families. I stood in stores blasting elevator music versions of “The Little Drummer Boy” that grossly paled in comparison with Neil Diamond’s stirring rendition. I waited in long lines behind impatient shoppers checking their watches, and I bought unsentimental presents I knew my parents and brothers wouldn’t like and probably wouldn’t use.

Come Christmas Eve, instead of feeling so excited about the next day that I couldn’t sleep, I drifted off easily and complained when I was awoken early the following morning.

Before I was even an adult, I adopted what seemed to be the popular thought about the meaning of the holiday season—a consumption-driven, anxiety-ridden time of year that leaves people overwhelmed, out of money and, if you can believe it, tired of Neil Diamond. Though it was a mind numbing cycle, it was a necessary one. So, like everyone else, I went to the mall, waited in line, bought presents and celebrated when it was over.

This process continued until I was forced out of it last December. I had just returned from a semester abroad in South Africa, which was essentially a lifetime’s-worth of Christmas presents. Because my time abroad was such a life-altering experience, I decided to give my family gifts that represented important moments in my time overseas. My mom got a book about famous South Africans’ mothers, my dad a Zulu-carved chess set, my younger brother a Springboks rugby T-shirt and my older brother “Playing the Enemy,” the best book I read while in South Africa and the inspiration for the movie “Invictus.”

Moreover, because my trip served as my Christmas gift, the few presents I did receive were all simple items my family knew I could use—a book about Robert Kennedy my brother bought from a second-hand store, a bowl carved from African wood, a hat my mom knit and gloves she made from one of my dad’s old sweaters. It was easily the least expensive assortment of Christmas presents I ever received, but it was also the best.

Given the tremendous variety in the holidays observed in December, this time of year obviously means many different things to many different people. Regardless of whether we see it in a religious context or simply as a break from work or school, it surely is not supposed to be a time we dread or feel stressful about. We can buy expensive gifts and make lavish preparations, but when whatever holiday we celebrate actually comes around, those things probably won’t seem that important compared to the people we celebrate with.

Note: For the record, yes, I mentioned Neil Diamond three times in this column. Four if you include this reference. Happy holidays.

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