My Own Season of Christmas

Photo by Elist Nguyen on Unsplash

The Christmas holiday season matters to me, though not for reasons of doctrine. I have always felt its pull—how it gathers families, neighborhoods, even strangers in shops and streets in celebration and good cheer. I value the season and its rituals and stories that sustain community.
 
I was born in 1959 and raised in a working-class neighborhood in Vancouver, often loosely referred to as “East Van.” Ours was not a churchgoing household, but like many families of the time, we were immersed in the family-oriented, conformist, consumerist culture of mid‑20th‑century North America. Christmas was everywhere, found on porches and in living rooms, in shop windows, and on television. It was less about belief than about belonging. The holiday’s rituals were woven into the fabric of our community, and they became part of my own formation.
 
Even now, I find myself drawn to the season’s festivity: the lights strung against winter’s darkness, the decorations that transform ordinary spaces, the merriment that softens daily routines. These are human inventions, rather than divine mandates. They push back against isolation, create warmth in the cold months, and remind us that joy can be cultivated even when the days are short. In this sense, Christmas is less about heaven above than about light against the long night.
 
The stories we tell at Christmas reinforce this meaning. Each year, my wife and I revisit the old animated specials—A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red‑Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman. We watch the classic films—It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Christmas Story. These narratives endure because they speak to human concerns: generosity, unseen goodness, redemption, and innocence. They are moral tales, not just theological ones, reminding us that kindness and community are worth cultivating regardless of metaphysical certainty.
 
Of course, the cultural environment has changed since my childhood. The conformity of the 1950s and 1960s has given way to a more inclusive society, where Christmas is celebrated in diverse ways and often alongside other traditions. I welcome that evolution. It shows that the holiday is adaptable, that its meaning is shaped less by doctrine than by human needs. Christmas can be Christian, secular, interfaith, or simply communal. Its resilience lies in its capacity to gather people together around collective rituals of wonder and reflection.
 
That’s why Christmas matters to me, an agnostic. Its rituals sustain memory, community, and shared traditions. It connects me to my childhood in Vancouver, to the cultural currents of my generation, to the stories that continue to shape our ethical landscape, and to the inclusive present in which the holiday has broadened beyond its original boundaries. Christmas endures not only because of its spiritual significance, but also because it addresses perennial human needs: for light in darkness, for joy in community, and for stories that remind us of kindness and hope.
 
In my own season of Christmas, what endures is not certainty but continuity in the way memory, ritual, and tradition carry forward even when belief may not. The holiday gathers fragments of childhood, the warmth of community, and the moral imagination of its tales, shaping a season that still matters to me. Meaning can be made and cherished, even when ultimate answers remain unknown.