Nicholas Day for the Nicolas Atheist

Happy Nicholas Day everybody.

Here in the Nicolas household today in the traditional start of the Christmas season which runs until Twelfth Night on 6 January.

I'm assuming that this proclamation comes as something of a surprise to some readers due to my atheism, but I wasn't born an atheist I became one, so Christmas was a part of my childhood and has remained part of my life since. Atheism on my part is the result of combining intelligence, common sense, and scholarly pursuits--Christmastime traditions, on the other hand, come from family traditions. I believe that intellect and reasonable thinking are an important aspect of a good life, and I also believe that tradition is important to a good family life. I firmly believe that the loss of traditions and the absence of rites of passage are two major contributors to a lot of society's ills.

Anyway, I meant to talk about the Nicolas' celebration of Nicholas Day, and not preach, so let's move on.

The traditions surrounding Christmastime here in the Nicolas household go as follows:

On Nicholas Day (today) the tree (always a fir tree) is purchased and brought into the house. That evening it is decorated along with the rest of the house. But, any lights on the tree remain unlit until Christmas Eve. A statue of St. Nicholas (or Grandfather Frost for my Great-Grandmother--Russian immigrant) and another of Krampus are placed in front of the tree to remind the children that they should be good.

The Nicholas/Grandfather Frost and Krampus thing, as I understand it, is an amalgamation of Russian and German traditions that my paternal great-grandparents brought from their prospective ancestries. My great-grandfather was Irish/German, and my great-grandmother Russian. Only in America could such combinations happen.

Without going into all the history of these traditions (which I have done for myself) I'll just say that when I was a child, Grandfather Frost/Nicholas represented getting presents on Christmas if I was good while Krampus represented getting nothing if I was bad. My grandmother told me that for her Krampus represented a great deal of fear because the way she had understood it Krampus would come down the chimney on Christmas Eve and drag her off if she had been bad--Nicholas would take Krampus' place if she had been good and bring her fruit and a toy. Thankfully, this tradition had been toned down a bit for me, because I was already having nightmares about Dad's "Satan" coming to get me for celebrating Christmas with my grandmother.

You see, somewhere along the way my father had become a fire and brimstone Pentecostal who thought celebrating Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and any other fun holiday (including birthdays) was evil because of their connections to the Catholic Church and pagan tradition. However, my grandmother is an extremely strong woman and forced my father to let my brothers, sisters, and me stay with her through Christmas.

Anyway, I digress again.

So after the tree has been decorated and Frost/Nicholas and his buddy Krampus have been placed, the children and I light a candle for their mother. I started this the year my wife died because it was she who had made Christmas purely a time of fun for me. Since she was Catholic, Christmas was a big deal for her, and through her I began to enjoy Christmas even though by the time I had met her I had lost every bit of my belief in Christ. While she was alive, I accompanied her to mass throughout the Christmas season despite the fact that I could not actually participate in the various rituals.

After Nicholas Day it becomes pretty much a time for the normal hum drums of life with the occasional Christmas party thrown in until Christmas Eve when the tree is lit, Krampus is put aside, and a large family dinner is devoured. After the kids are in bed the presents are hauled out of hiding, assembled if need be, and placed under and around the tree. Midnight mass was on the agenda for several years, but I haven't been in a church since the day I buried my wife, except for touristy visits to St. Patrick's in New York.

Christmas morning is set aside for my children and me to open gifts and such, then the rest of the day is visiting/phone call time for family and friends.

On New Year's Eve I am in the woods somewhere camping. Sometimes the kids go with me, sometimes they don't. This night is more of a personal tradition that sprang up the year my wife died. I was extremely depressed after Christmas, so as is my way when life gets to me, I packed up my camping gear and went to the woods a few days after Christmas. That year I woke up at about two in the morning New Year's Day and it was snowing outside the tent. That was an extremely emotional moment for me, so I have been camping through New Year's every year since. This year ice climbing on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire is tentatively on the agenda, so the children probably won't go--it's way too cold for them there this time of year. Rock climbing in Red River Gorge Kentucky is the back-up plan, and the one the children are pushing.

The final event on my family Christmas calender is the taking down of the tree and all Christmas decorations on Twelfth Night (6 January) or as my wife called it "Epiphany." This is done (again according to my father's family) to avoid the bad luck that leaving these decorations up would bring to the household.

So there it is. Today, for me and mine, is the start of a truly mixed set of traditions brought from Russia, Germany, Ireland and who knows where else to the small house in the woods of Kentucky, USA where my grandmother lives then exported with a few additions to the small house in Indiana where I live.

Hopefully, these things will be carried at least in part to wherever my children end up living in their adulthood.

Black Friday

Here in the good ole U S of A we have a wonderful tradition on the Friday following Thanksgiving. It is on this day that the Christmas shopping season officially begins. In recent years this day has become known as Black Friday, due to it's importance to the bottom line of many retailers.

Over the last few years it has become the trend for many large retailers to offer what they call "early bird specials" on Black Friday. These specials are usually phenomenal deals on big ticket items such as computers and HD TVs that only the first few people in the door at opening time get.

As it turns out, this year I was drastically in need of not one, but two new computers. My daughter entered high school this year and was sorely in need of a laptop, and the computer I had at home was roughly the same model that God used to e-mail the Ten Commandments to Moses.

To my delight, both Best Buy and Circuit City were having really good Black Friday deals on laptops and desktop PCs, so I jumped into the fray. My Black Friday experience was enough to make me decide that from now on I will pay standard retail or buy ones that have "fallen off of a truck."

My foray into the world of early birds started with my setting up camp outside Circuit City at 9 P.M. Thanksgiving day. I thought I was being sly by getting there eight hours before opening with a camp chair, a thermos, and a sleeping bag. As it turned out I was number 52 in line behind people who had brought tents, battery operated televisions, portable heaters, and had support teams to bring them fresh coffee, and food. I was quite a rookie, and way out of my league, but I stuck it out.

During the next 8 hours I got very little sleep, but did manage to witness the true meaning of Christmas. The lack of sleep wasn't due to the sub freezing temperatures or off and on light rain, because my sleeping bag is the one I use quite often on mountaineering and rock climbing trips, and is quite bombproof in such conditions. No, the lack of sleep was due to the constant barrage of idiocy that seemed to be centered in the line ahead of me.

I was pulled from slumber twice due to local rednecks making rather rude and unwelcome propositions to the very attractive young woman in line in front of me. The first one left after she called him something in Hindi (she is of Indian descent) which she later told me roughly translated as a shit eating dog. The second guy left only after I told him that if he didn't I would [paraphrased] feed him his manhood. After that incident she called her brother who came with coffee for me, and company for her until the opening bell.

My beauty sleep was later interrupted when local law enforcement arrived to resolve an argument about someones place in line, or lack thereof. Following a five minute conversation, the officers escorted three people out of line and off the property which moved me to number 49.

Things were quiet after that until 4 A.M. when store employees started handing out vouchers. It was this presentation of golden tickets that we were all in line for. It seems that in years past retail establishments have had problems with fights over who gets in the door first, so they began handing out vouchers for the items on sale. These things are hot tickets because there may only be a few of a particularly hot item in stock so the early bird does in fact get the worm.

Due to my rookie status and high place in line I missed out on the laptop voucher, but I was lucky enough to get a desktop voucher. I felt like I had won the lottery because I got the last one. Thank Frodo those idiots arguing with the police got escorted away. Anyway, with my precious voucher in hand I was foolish enough to think my experience with greed and gluttony was over--once again I was proving just how much of a rookie I was.

When the doors finally opened I was damned near trampled to death by the horde of electronics junkies behind me, because I wasn't in enough of a hurry to get inside. Then once inside I decided to check out some of the other deals, and give the voucher lines time to die down a bit.

As I was looking around, I noticed a particularly good deal on a digital camera that would be a suitable replacement for one that got destroyed in a rather long fall off of a mountain in Columbia a few months ago. As I reached for the camera I was all but assaulted by an extremely obese woman who had eyed the same camera. Luckily my reflexes were better than hers so I got the camera and managed to not loose a limb in the process. She called me names in some rather un-ladylike manner, but then moved off to swallow other less agile shoppers.

This ordeal was followed by a 90 minute qeue to pay for my hardfought booty.

Granted, I got an incredible deal on a great computer (with which I am writing this story) and have a shiny new camera for my upcoming trips to Red River Gorge, New River Gorge, and the Creation Museum in Kentucky, but I vow to never again put my self in such peril just to save a few hundred dollars.

Oh, and in case you are wondering--I later found a really good deal on laptops that I didn't have to enter Gladiator school to get, so my daughter is currently IMing away with some 17 year old boy who isn't aware that I not only know his name, but his address and what he looks like.

So, Happy Christmahanaquanzica everybody.

A Must Read

By way of God is for Suckers I found an essay written by an 11 year-old girl that does a better job of putting the whole Christmas thing in perspective than anything else I have ever read on the subject.

Then, to top it off, there are certain replies to this young lady's essay that do more to show the character of the average American Baptist than anything I could ever write.

This essay and its follow-up would easily classify as must reads, so for a worthwhile bit of reading check it out.