plutherus

The Christmas present from my mother arrived yesterday. Along with a big fuzzy blanket, and the book of the new Star Trek movie, there was a bag of Bertie Bott's Beans that they picked up last month in their trip to the Jelly Belly factory.
Now, to understand the implications of this, you gotta know a few things: My family is very (very) religious. Of the Pat-Robertson-listening, Jack-Chick-Reading, gather-round-for-a-good-old-book-burning variety. Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans are a candy that feature prominently in the Harry Potter novels, which of course, the fundamentalist churches condemn as evil. A fact of which she is quite aware. In past years, I've been given Christian books and heartfelt "Jesus is real" statements. For her to buy me a bag of them for a Christmas present is a hell of a statement: An acceptance that my beliefs differ from hers and that it doesn't matter. For the first time since I was like ten, I feel like I'm loved and accepted for who I am.

I'm not sure of all the psycho-sociological implications of a booger-flavored jelly bean being a symbol of a mother's love, but there it is.

I love Christmas. I love the hype. I love the commercialism. I love ads for war toys during "Frosty the Snowman". I love every child's first introduction to Santa Claus: "You call that a nose? Donner, you make sure your kid keeps that freakish thing covered up! Now, I gotta go pig out - after all, the children expect a fat Santa!" (And who can forget Yukon Cornelius, the North Pole's answer to Yosemite Sam?) I love the malls full of stressed-out shoppers trying to buy their last-minute crap gifts, and fretting about their budgets and hoping they're still employed after the holidays so they have some chance of paying off their credit cards. God rest ye merry, merchants, make you make the yule-tide pay.

Hmmm... That sounds kinda cynical, but really, I do love these things. After all, commercialism is what makes our economy go. Rudolph eventually learns that being different is good, and the misfit toys re-join society, who accepts their differences. And, of course, there's nothing like that smug sense of self-satisfaction that comes with being in the midst of a stressed-out crowd rushing from store to store, but going along at your own pace, knowing you have three hours before the party and only two gifts to buy. And of course, there's the Chex(tm) mix cooking in the oven, Weekend-Before-Christmas Ham on the stove, presents for gift exchange under the tree (what'd'ya get ME?!) (and being banished to the back room and updating your live journal on your friends computer because they haven't wrapped their presents out there yet.)

Although I'm still trying to get a handle on the fact that the store down the street from my apartment is having a Christmas special on barbeque eel...