I come from the bent backs and handcart tracks of Mormon pioneers, people with their shoulders to the wheel, folks who made do, and then made better. My grandmother’s Great Depression survival story lined her cellar shelves with canning jars of everything from asparagus to zucchini squash. She wasted little. I have a recipe in her spidery cursive for Shoe Leather Pickles made with over-ripe cucumbers; a recipe for Peach Pit Jelly, a light almondy peach refreshment; another recipe for Apple Pie Filling made by the “peck,” which is about 10 pounds or one-quarter bushel. I feel it in my being — her ingenuity, her independence, her resourcefulness.
Frugality is something I admire as a creative endeavor, an exercise in deepening appreciation for what is in front of me. I’m known to preserve food, mend the broken, and to pull together a meager meal. My frugality is by nature more than necessity, and I like it. Especially at Christmas when the world over-indulges on … stuff.
American author Laura Ingalls Wilder captured Christmas as a time when pioneering people gathered, ate the best they had, and played games. Gifts were small and simple, nearly insignificant to the fun of friends and family. As we raised children of our own, my husband and I used a modified Marugg Little House version and spent holiday breaks playing family board games, watching movie marathons, snow play, etc. We aimed for quality togetherness over quantity of stuff. So far, our adult kids are happy, healthy and living within their means; both remember winter holidays fondly and appear to be unharmed by this play-hard holiday strategy.
As a Secular Humanist, the commercialization of religious holidays is easier to avoid. This is not a complaint. I joke, “another holiday cooked up by Hallmark to sell cards,” but there’s some truth there, too. The push to buy, buy, buy, do, do, do, give, give, give, feels manipulative and self-abusive to me. The whole “must do because Christmas” takes the joy out of the giving like no other calendar date, introducing a calculus that breaks the definition of altruism. Altruism is one of the Humanist Ten Commitments and I never notice its complexities more than I do at Christmas.
Despite my Mormon heritage, or maybe because of it, it’s easy for me to imagine a time before the arrival of Christianity, a time when people in the northern hemisphere celebrated the return of the sun at the winter solstice, before people knew of planetary orbits, gravity, or electricity. Logophiles recognize the homonyms “sun” and “son.” For Christians there’s an additional metaphorical twist to the idea that both “sun” and “son” are necessary for life. It’s hard to get better than that.
Today, the way I experience Christmas is up to me and I choose simplicity, connection and peace. I reject a season defined by more stuff, busyness and stress; a season insipid by a frenzied pursuit of possessions. After all, the s-o-n was born into simplicity. Or so the story goes. "Simple" is a tradition I can do.
My gift to myself is rejecting the commercialization of subjective things, personal experiences and sacred things. Commercialization changes the experience of “awe” into something else, something it never was. The best things are un-merch-able, like the best things in life being free, and the best times being timeless. When I remember my grandmother, I recognize myself — her gift to me is a genetic mirror that reflects across generations. She’d approve my use of her notes.
Marugg is a Secular Humanist against tainting altruism with commercialism. She can be reached at janetmarugg7@gmail.com
