Saturday, December 24,
2016
Why My
Family Turns Our Christmas Tree Into a Political Statement
If it is not about the presents, what is Christmas about?
Frida Berrigan’s family made a
anti-Trump protest angel for the top of their Christmas treethis year. (Photo:
WNV / Frida Berrigan)
I picked
up a call from an unfamiliar local number. It was someone organizing to give
toys to needy families. “We picked your family,” she said happily. I stumbled
and stuttered over myself a little as I tried to be gracious while also clear:
We do not need or want the beautifully wrapped, ready-made Christmas morning
her group had envisioned for our kids. “Thank you so much for thinking of us,
but we try to downplay the whole presents part of Christmas,” I managed. “But I
know there are lots of people who would really appreciate your generosity.”
The whole
presents part of Christmas kind of seems like the biggest part of it, right?
The average American plans to spend more than $900 on gifts
this holiday season. That is planned spending, which we know is vulnerable to
the last minute “oooh” factor, as well as the mistake of bringing your children
with you to the store.
In our
house, we have been buying 50-cent mugs at Goodwill all year long. We are going
to make toffee, fill mugs with toffee, wrap them in brown paper and leave it at
that. With our families and co-workers, we do Yankee Swaps and Secret Santas,
where it is “the thought” that counts — not grabbing the must-have toy of the
year. This year, I understand that the hot toy is something called a Hatchanimal. It costs $60 (if you can find
it), breaks out of its shell and then matures over a few days, learning from
you as you take care of it. It is super adorable, and I am sure all three of my
kids would love it enthusiastically, forsaking all other objects to be near it.
That is, until they are distracted by dinner, a visitor or a particularly
awesome cardboard box. That’s how quickly the beloved Hatchanimal becomes
yesterday’s news.
For the
first time, my four-and-a-half-year-old son Seamus is excited about Santa. He
used to think the bearded old gent was something out of a nightmare and stayed
far away. Last weekend, however, he marched right up to a Santa at a holiday
festival and started chatting about how he would be in Michigan, not
Connecticut, this year. Our affable son told the jolly elf that he would leave
out cookies for him “on a plate with milk for you! And carrots for your
reindeers too.” Seamus then sat down for the obligatory photo and kept right on
talking.
“I have
had very good behavior, right Mommy?” He grinned up at me like he was not the
one who had taken to yelling “I am ignoring you,” when called for dinner. He
and Santa chatted on, but they never got to the heart of the transaction —
presents. Seamus didn’t ask for anything and this Santa (probably because it
was at a Heifer International fair and all about giving not getting) didn’t
offer. They shook hands and parted as friends, with Seamus calling, “See you
soon, Santa” as we walked away. I could not have been happier if I scripted the
whole encounter myself.
If it is
not about the presents, what is Christmas about? Baby Jesus, the festival of
lights, lots of getting together with friends and family, lots of craft making
time — ’tis the season of glitter, God help us! Oh yeah, and taking care of our
Christmas tree occupies a lot of our holiday time. The kids are climbing up on
the sofa 10 times a day to put new ornaments that they made or found onto our
rickety $20 tree. It has already fallen over once, smashing all the really nice
ornaments we’d been given and running a huge stream of water through our living
room. The kids shimmy under the tree all the time too, checking the water,
fussing with the lights, hiding from one another. There is room for them to do
that (although it is probably why it fell over in the first place) because
there aren’t any presents under it. We put more of our attention on the top of
the tree than the bottom.
I make a
new tree topper every year, one that expresses our visions or outrages of the
moment. Last year, I enlisted a favorite doll in my “refugees are not
terrorists” angel. In 2014, Seamus and I worked on a “Black Lives Matter” angel
with feathery paper wings that layered the word “breathe” with squares that he
scribbled and glittered. In 2013, I did it alone, using fragments of Martin
Espada’s “Angels of Bread” poem and scraps of newspaper
articles. This year’s angel holds a protest sign that reads “Trump is not my
president” and wears a dress made of strips of denim festooned with protest buttons. Seamus and his younger sister Madeline
collaborated to color in the angel’s wings, but when I put it all together,
Seamus didn’t want the angel to hold a sign.
Frida
Berrigan’s protest angels commemorate, from left to right: refugees, Black
Lives Matter and Angels of Bread. (WNV / Frida Berrigan)
“I just
want it to be beautiful, Mommy. Angels don’t hold signs,” he said, his little
brow furrowed and his voice emphatic. I got all theological on him and went on
and on about how angels were always popping up in the Bible to let us humans in
on the good news, such as babies being born to old women and virgins or
prophets being raised from the dead. I also told him about their warnings —
such as King Herod is coming to get you — and how, today, they might as well be
carrying protest signs as they deliver the news. “Angels help us resist,
Seamus,” I said. “They are the ones who give us the information and the courage
to speak out when we would rather just hang out. Our angel’s protest sign is
good news! Our angel is reminding us that Trump isn’t our president. Right? We
can still be good people, even though we have a terrible president.”
Seamus
probably stopped listening a third of the way through all that, but I was proud
of my exposition on angels. It made some impression because he did make the
wings beautiful. They are very orange, though, which is not a color I associate
with Christmas (or want to associate with it, given the president-elect’s
complexion).
Our
four-year streak of tree-topper as homemade political statement isn’t really
going to change the world. But we do it together. It is part of our Christmas
now. That and not having a lot of presents under our tree.
This work
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Frida Berrigan, a columnist for WagingNonviolence.org,
serves on the board of the War Resisters League and organizes with
Witness Against Torture.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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