Southern Fried Christmas

You can't induce the the Christmas spirit. There's no pill you can pop to suddenly find yourself strolling through the house humming along with the melody of Burl Ives' Holly Jolly Christmas . No teaspoon of thick pink syrup could ever give you the urge to leave the quiet and calm confines of your home to visit the mall in early December. And certainly no IV could be expected to make you want to spend an entire afternoon pulling out heavy boxes from the attic, strap a dying $65 tree to the top of your car, or even think about wrestling a twelve foot ladder across the front yard in a hopeless battle with age old strings of Christmas lights.

No, like any other form of insanity you have to allow this to happen to you naturally.

Bah Humbug, you say. You're just a Grinch in sheep's clothing. Perhaps, but I'm right. When you think about all the shopping and crowds and travel and small talk and tacky sweaters and those unbearable Chipmunks crooning away from every speaker you know that you have to love it, embrace it, to survive. It's kind of like living in Alaska.

That's not to say I'm not a fan of Christmas, I am. I love the songs and the smell of a fresh tree. I enjoy a warm fire, a good holiday movie, and the thrill of watching everyone unwrap their presents. But most of all, on Christmas, I love snow. Pink cheeks, red noses, and boots dripping by the door. This is how Christmas should be.

When I was a kid in Illinois I really loved the snow. It was all about snowball fights and snow angels and snow men. It meant the possibility of the much coveted "snow day" - a favorite of both teachers and students. These were the days before I knew what it was to shovel the driveway, sidewalk, and steps or to feel the tires of the car sliding across a solid sheet of ice toward a busy intersection. Snow was so much simpler then.

Yet with all its trappings, snow is Christmas. And that is what makes Christmas in the south so bizarre. There is none. Had Irving Berlin grown up in South Carolina rather than Russia and, later, New York he might have written "I'm Dreaming of a Brown Christmas." Just imagine...

I'm dreaming of a brown Christmas
just like the ones I used to know
Where the temp hits fifty
and the folks get chilly
and bundle up like eskimoes

No, there is no snow at Christmas for the south. Instead, they litter their yellow hibernating lawns with nodding reindeer and glowing snowmen made of steel and rope lights. Pseudo-icicles are strung from gutters and giant inflatable snow globes are staked in place. And it all looks eerily out of place. It just doesn't seem to fit. It reminds me of our foreign exchange student from Saudi Arabia who learned to speak English by watching BET. He showed up wearing a doo-rag and calling everyone "dawg." We knew what he was going for but it didn't quite work.

That's a southern Christmas.

Perhaps Christmas should become a regional holiday - only for those temperate zones that don't cancel school and put chains on their tires at the threat of a light dusting. Leave Christmas to the states who do it right. You know, the ones who enjoy a white Christmas but then pay the price for it by enduring three or four more months of frigid temperatures, black snow at the side of the road, and seemingly no hope of ever seeing the sun again. Why did you think so many of them spike their eggnog?

No, I say the south needs to put an end to the hoax. I suggest, instead, that they create their own holiday. One that the northerners could never dream of having. While no holiday should get its origins from a television sitcom I do have to say I would be partial to seeing Festivus take hold. You have the Airing of the Grievances and, of course, the pole. Throw in a sixty-five degree day, lots of sunshine, and some chitlins, grits, and bar-be-cue (pork, of course) and you've got a heck of start.

And no snow to shovel in the morning.