Christmas – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

Despite the time and energy it takes to participate in the religious and social rituals associated with Christmas, the result is that I am spiritually grounded, emotionally provoked, mentally rested, and physically fed. Advent, Christmas, New Year’s, and the last week of the year are times when I reconnect to what is important to me, and the holiday rituals help me do this.

The “holiday season” is upon us, and I’m still busy and exhausted, as I’m sure many of you are. Although my life isn’t as stressful as it was in October, I am still juggling multiple commitments while trying to make significant progress on my dissertation. This past weekend, I spent some time with other dissertation writers in the same predicament, and quite a few of them were thinking of cancelling Christmas in their households in response.

My immediate reaction to canceling Christmas (or another alternative they mentioned, micro-Christmas) was to inwardly scream “THAT’S RIDICULOUS!!!!” To be honest, I’m not sure my facial expression didn’t make my reaction plain. But since I value my relationships with these people and I genuinely respect their insights, I decided to keep my reaction to myself and to give the matter more thought. I realized later on that all of the “cancel Christmas” advocates were women. So I began to consider what the implications of cancelling Christmas would be for women. Continue reading “Cancel Christmas? By Elise M. Edwards”

Yesterday I was watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in which George’s father said to him, “you’re not like us, you’re a surgeon.” “And,” George’s father added, “you don’t like to do the things we like to do.” It is not easy not being like your family and not liking the things they like. When my mother was alive, she was the glue that held us together. Since then, my sheer presence in the lives of my father and my brothers and their families is disruptive. No matter that I try not to make waves, I make them all the same. I do keep my mouth shut about politics and religion and feminism. Even so, the last time I was home for the holidays my father asked me to stay in a hotel because having me in the house made him nervous and uncomfortable. To be fair, how would you feel if your daughter was 6 feet tall and you weren’t, she had a PhD and you didn’t, and even if she didn’t open her mouth at all, you knew that she didn’t agree with your political views or your everyday assumption that men make the final decisions on all important matters? Or if you were my brother who does not have a college education and who feels that women and minorities and gays have taken something from him? Or if you were my Mormon brother who is trying to keep his three daughters on the straight and narrow and not on the path chosen by their aunt? On the last Christmas day I spent at my brother’s house, I did not mention any of the obvious things, but it was hard to hide being astonished by the number of presents and the amount of money spent on them, and I simply could not force myself to watch football. Continue reading “Home for the Holidays By Carol P. Christ”