Yeah, reading your description of how the tradition has worked for you and trying to figure out exactly how I had imagined it working, I was thinking that a large part of this problem is a disconnect between how I imagine it working and how it actually does work for many people (though I doubt anything would make it wholly okay for me).
I can definitely see how for someone for whom the Santa tradition is a very positive one would be offended by the judgmental nature of the icons I made. 'Cause honestly, my thought process could have been fairly accurately reduced to, "I value truth so very highly, and here is this tradition which has so many [potential] positive aspects to it being epitomized by a big ole lie," and I was judging harshly. And I still mostly stand behind that harsh judgment, but I can see how it's not necessarily always quite as awful as I tend to think of it as being.
I CAN buy presents for my family and keep it special and meaningful. With friends it would be much harder, not to mention impossible in terms of finances and time. (I do actually occasionally do that spontaneous gift-giving thing with my friends, incidentally.)
Leaving aside my brother, who for the most part seems primarily interested in the acquisition of stuff/money when it comes to celebrations, I think my parents would both prefer a far less stuff-oriented holiday season (though I'm far closer to my father than my mother in my minimalist-orientation) where it *could* be more about just the warmth and togetherness and celebration -- and my grandma's insistence on the exchange of copious amounts of gifts as an incredibly important component of Christmas heavily colors my experience of the gift exchange aspect of the holiday season.
Mmm, Midnight Mass. For that matter, mmm, Vespers. Was just trying to discuss with someone why I find Vespers amazingly uplifting, Bible passages and all, in spite of not being a believer. Must articulate that sometime.
Yeah, Vespers is beautiful. I tend to forget how Christian-centric it is and to this day feel bad for encouraging a non-Christian friend to go (she ended up leaving early it was so uncomfortable for her) but said friend was a fairly unusual case (she had a lot of bad experiences with institutionalized Christianity growing up and was expecting a far less Christian-centric experience than Vespers is) and it makes me happy that so many non-Christians find it a positive experience. (Damn, now I'm all tempted to go back to Smith for Vespers weekend.)
Again, I tend to think that when people are non-intentional, that’s really their own problem. I am the ultimate “whatever works for you” person, and I’m careful to keep my own life and my own ceremonies as mindful as possible. It saddens me when others don’t, but that’s up to them. Until every last participant no longer finds true value in a ceremony, it still has true value and is worth maintaining (at least for them).
*nods* I think one of my big problems is that I feel like the culture [churches included] encourages non-intentionality, which frustrates me a lot. And it's difficult for me to feel like I can participate with integrity in traditions which have become so full of non-intentionality and in many ways turned counter to the original intentions.
Re: the defense, er, doesn't rest
I can definitely see how for someone for whom the Santa tradition is a very positive one would be offended by the judgmental nature of the icons I made. 'Cause honestly, my thought process could have been fairly accurately reduced to, "I value truth so very highly, and here is this tradition which has so many [potential] positive aspects to it being epitomized by a big ole lie," and I was judging harshly. And I still mostly stand behind that harsh judgment, but I can see how it's not necessarily always quite as awful as I tend to think of it as being.
I CAN buy presents for my family and keep it special and meaningful. With friends it would be much harder, not to mention impossible in terms of finances and time. (I do actually occasionally do that spontaneous gift-giving thing with my friends, incidentally.)
Leaving aside my brother, who for the most part seems primarily interested in the acquisition of stuff/money when it comes to celebrations, I think my parents would both prefer a far less stuff-oriented holiday season (though I'm far closer to my father than my mother in my minimalist-orientation) where it *could* be more about just the warmth and togetherness and celebration -- and my grandma's insistence on the exchange of copious amounts of gifts as an incredibly important component of Christmas heavily colors my experience of the gift exchange aspect of the holiday season.
Mmm, Midnight Mass. For that matter, mmm, Vespers. Was just trying to discuss with someone why I find Vespers amazingly uplifting, Bible passages and all, in spite of not being a believer. Must articulate that sometime.
Yeah, Vespers is beautiful. I tend to forget how Christian-centric it is and to this day feel bad for encouraging a non-Christian friend to go (she ended up leaving early it was so uncomfortable for her) but said friend was a fairly unusual case (she had a lot of bad experiences with institutionalized Christianity growing up and was expecting a far less Christian-centric experience than Vespers is) and it makes me happy that so many non-Christians find it a positive experience. (Damn, now I'm all tempted to go back to Smith for Vespers weekend.)
Again, I tend to think that when people are non-intentional, that’s really their own problem. I am the ultimate “whatever works for you” person, and I’m careful to keep my own life and my own ceremonies as mindful as possible. It saddens me when others don’t, but that’s up to them. Until every last participant no longer finds true value in a ceremony, it still has true value and is worth maintaining (at least for them).
*nods* I think one of my big problems is that I feel like the culture [churches included] encourages non-intentionality, which frustrates me a lot. And it's difficult for me to feel like I can participate with integrity in traditions which have become so full of non-intentionality and in many ways turned counter to the original intentions.