Why I Thank the Scrooges in My Life

Though I was raised by Scrooges and have a Bah-Humbug spouse, I refuse to succumb to holiday depression. Every year I experience a kind of seasonal euphoria that certainly isn't due to childhood traditions. My parents only reluctantly engaged in celebrations "for the children" -- all the while expressing distaste for the commercialism and bitterness over memories of Depression-era privations. Then, as atheists, they debunked the Nativity story. Perhaps I was a changeling child, because I still bustled around singing Christmas carols, making decorations from construction paper, and tuning the TV to seasonal specials. As an adult, I am the champion of the holiday spirit in my home. My Indian husband was raised in a Hindu household without Western traditions. He spends his Xmas complaining about the expense and the bland seasonal food he has to choke down. Yet every year, I happily decorate a tree, send seasonal cards, cook traditional fare, and play holiday music that no one else listens to. I welcome my children and relatives who can visit, and send my love to those who must be absent. I remember the faces that I have not seen in many years because of distance and death. I count my blessings and give more to charities. And I thank the Scrooges. They forced me to cultivate a personal meaning for the holidays that has nothing to do with religious orientation or retail hype or transient circumstances. As Scrooge's nephew explained to him in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I embrace the season "as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" Happy Holidays to all.