Frank Costanza: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.
Cosmo Kramer: What happened to the doll?
Frank Costanza: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born … a Festivus for the rest of us!
Cosmo Kramer: That must’ve been some kind of doll.
Frank Costanza: She was.

I recently had a great conversation with some of my Jewish and atheist friends about Christmas and whether it can ever be a secular holiday, whether it can ever truly be a holiday shared by the whole community. Yes Christmas is a Christian holiday, but hey, there was a time when Christians found it too pagan. The idea of a time when (in theory) we all stop to prioritise giving, sharing, having fun with people we love, is a nice one. (I once tried to explain to my partner that what I most liked about Christmas is that it’s a time where everything seems to slow down. He replied, like the good unionist that he is, that “a general strike would achieve the same thing”.)

Proving that the internet probably hasn’t taken away our ability to share big pop-cultural moments, a lot of people are (faux) celebrating Festivus. The completely new “holiday” has certainly proved more popular than the OC’s Chrismakkah, a blend of existing traditions. Or perhaps it’s more that Festivus taps in to a more engrained although previously unacknowledged tradition: the airing of grievances.

How can we make Christmas into a truly secular holiday that all Australians can happily participate in? Should we even try, do we really need one? And if we do, what should we make of the traditions we already have? Do we need to remove Christian elements in order to make it truly universal? Or is it enough not to insist that we all believe the Christmas myth? I mean, why give up beautiful music if you don’t have to? Let’s just have it all…

Whatever you do this long weekend, I hope it’s a good one!

I tried and failed to get a clip from the West Wing where the Whiffenpoofs sing “Oh Holy Night”, but that seems to be impossible. But a friend on Twitter did point me to a scene from another West Wing Christmas episode, re-enacted with puppets, so have that instead.

I have a feeling, though, that a little more is going on.

In most OECD economies, these days, consumer spending makes up anywhere from 60 to 70% of GDP.

Thus, the incitement to spend has a direct economic rationale. And if you don’t believe that the squillions of dollars devoted to advertising and marketing in all their guises have an effect, I think you need to specify why those bucks are spent.

We’re living we’re told, in some sort of consumerist utopia, where choice reigns.

But what if people choose not to consume?

I suspect that something more interesting is happening than just people being nervous about spending post-GFC. (And remember that the GFC itself, in one way of looking at it, resolves to a problem of excess capital chasing returns created through the extension of credit, and thus, debt.)

It’s possible, I suspect, that having lots of stuff is losing its lustre. Once you have a big screen tv, do you really need a new one that’s in 3D? It may also be that a more human way of celebrating friends, family and loved ones is trumping a mad frenzy of rushing about to a deadline set by the timetable of a consumerist feast. And there might be some resonances with broader cultural shifts we’re seeing – the rise or return of DiY, slow food, and so on.

If you think about that for a minute, and think about the capitalist rationale for consumerism, then you get a bit closer to the underlying ideological significance of the “Greens/inner city latte lefties despise McMansions and plasma tvs” line of attack.

But what if the desire to consume is reaching a limit?

Interesting times.

Now, it’s much too close to the festive season to get into a serious round of cheering and/or harrumphing, so let’s enter into the spirit of things, and put together our wish-list for the new rights that are needed to cope with the modern festive season, secular consumerist frenzy, co-opted pagan solstice festival, the day before the Boxing Day test, Jesus’ Birthday, Christmas:

• The Right to Switch Off Your Mobile – Actually, this should be a 365-day a year celebration. Just leave it at home. If you’re at home, put it in a cupboard. Rediscover the zen of the Now.
• The Right to Have No Opinion – go on, be inconclusive, I dare you. When that barbecue-stopping issue comes up, just shrug non-committally and remark “it’s complicated” or “I like to mull things over”, and then maintain a Sphinx-like calm while all around you degenerate into hollering and back-biting.
• The Right to Calories Consumed When Nobody Is Looking = Zero – this is an obvious corollary of the rule that all the fat and sugar leak out of broken biscuits.
• The Right to No More Upgrades - As a former boss used to say, “if it’s working, don’t f*** with it”. Let your computer become a software museum, running un-auto-updated versions of operating systems past, with stable versions of programs that do one thing, well. You will spare yourself many, many wasted hours of failed patch installs, re-installs and configuration snafus.
• The Right to Call It ‘Christmas’ – In my community, we wish our neighbours a ‘gentle fast’ during Yom Kippur, in the full knowledge that they, or we, might observe no such practice. Likewise I feel no compunction to refer to Ramadan as ‘Auspicious Month for Dieters’. If Christmas is an important festival to you, I see no reason why you can’t or shouldn’t celebrate it your way, complete with a round of ‘Merry Christmases’ to all the non-believers you know. We’ve coped with worse, trust me.

What other rights and freedoms are now urgent priorities for modern living?

Eric Bogle’s Shelter gives tributes to our land “dressed in green and gold”:

And here’s Tim Minchin’s White Wine in the Sun, about how it’s possible to enjoy Christmas traditions even when you’re not religious, because in the end it’s all about family:

What do the rest of you like as Aussie summer/Xmas songs?

The ABS stopped calculating the trend (the dark line) in November because “it is not possible to determine the trend in retail turnover through the period affected by the Federal Government Economic Security Strategy Package and other influences associated with global economic conditions”.

But it is absolutely clear where retail was going. The December stimulus payments broke the trend and continue to do so.

Even with the 2 per cent fall in seasonally adjusted spending in February we are still spending far more in the shops than we would have without the payments.

An interesting thing happened on the way to Christmas last year — the $10.4 billion Economic Security Package not only worked, but worked nearly exactly as Treasury had forecast it would.

Peter Martin:

“The bonus cheques had an obvious effect,” said Commonwealth Bank economist Sara Hoeing. “If there were any doubts about the efficacy of government stimulus packages and consumers’ willingness to spend, this news is a clear rebuttal.”

The New Farm festivities kicked off with a deeply spiritual mood before Midnight Mass (Italian style, described here) @ Casa Bahnisch. Surrounded by angelic presences we were! You can see the Holy Spirit church steps where we enjoyed pannetone and sparkling wine here at flickr.

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/christmas1.jpg"

And the next day was lovely and relaxed on a back deck somewhere in the leafy Western suburbs. Turkey, more turkey, desserts, turkey sandwiches and pressies – including (but not limited to) a bottle of Bowmore Islay Single Malt.

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/christmas-2.jpg"

Boxing Day saw a road trip to the Sunshine Coast, visiting rellos of my friends, and then a fine pitstop in Mooloolaba for some restorative briney air and healthy vego food at Raw Energy Cafe (which I thoroughly recommend). And then topped off with some beers and good company and a storm on another New Farm back deck.