This year, whenever I’ve been asked what I’m doing for Christmas, I’m trying out a new response:
“Abstaining from it as much as possible?”
As you can see from the question mark, I’m not entirely sure this is exactly the right way to express what I mean. It’s hard telling people you don’t celebrate their favourite holiday. And a lot of people are uncomfortable when they find out it’s not because you belong to another religion with different traditions. But not everyone is religious, and not everyone identifies with secular traditions, and I think an important part of religious freedom is the freedom not to follow a religion, or any traditions, at all.
That said, there are still a few seasonal habits I enjoy. In winter, I’m naturally drawn to warm, spicy things. So I still made the traditional family Christmas pudding. I also made up a batch of my signature Gingerbread B-Girls (recipe from the ppk, of course). (Is there anything I won’t try to express with food? No. No there isn’t.)
Then, this week, CBC Connect (have you seen CBC Connect? It’s a fun CBC News Network show with lots of viewer interaction. My friend Jenn is their “cross-platform contributor”) wanted to know about off-the-wall holiday traditions. I sent them a 15-second clip about my Gingerbread B-Girls, and they ran part of it on-air. So there’s one little ginger leg up for un-traditionalism!
You can see their segment on their blog. And here’s the vid in all 15 seconds of its full glory:
I will leave you with an (un)official work-in-progress “holiday” greeting: If you celebrate something this time of year, have a good one. If not, enjoy the days off. Have some cookies, do some dancing, see the people you love, read with your dog in your lap, invest in something that matters, try something new, snuggle– whatever makes you happy and warm.
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