All I Wanted For Christmas
How I Came to Terms With Not Celebrating the Holiday

Photo Illustration by Akure Imes| VOX Staff

By Akure Imes | VOX Staff

There is one part of the year when everyone seems to feel like gift-giving, partying, spending time with family, eating until they burst and having an all around good spirit. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about: It’s the holiday season! For those in school this is the longest break of the year, making it the perfect time for parents who work to take off and visit family.

Don’t get me wrong, I love spending winter break at home for two weeks, stuffing myself with the kind of food that you know isn’t good for you but eat like an addict anyway, watching television, hanging with friends and becoming nocturnal (sleeping all day, waking up at night). But the part I dreaded for years, until recently, was returning to school to see my peers decked out in their new winter shoes, huge bubble coats and fresh outfits, showing off their brand new iPods, cell phones and/or digital cameras while talking about the flaws in the new game consoles they got.

My Longing
Though I desperately yearned to, I included myself in none of this talk. I couldn’t because I didn’t get any of that stuff. I didn’t — and still don’t — observe Christmas. I don’t want to sound like a poor girl who received no gifts at all because I have gotten a shirt here or an outfit there, but I felt that wasn’t enough.

As a child, I wanted badly to be a part of Christmas. I would often blame my feelings on my mother. Inside of me, the anger boiled, my mother being the target for not buying me things during the holidays. During these times I even felt that she didn’t love me (for the record I would like to note that my mother loves me dearly). I always saw people showing their love for others by buying them stuff. I thought that my mother should have been doing the same.

When I was in middle school, the pressure seemed extra great to have so-called “good” clothes. Middle school was the time when the types of gifts kids received changed from toys, which were kept at home, to clothes that were worn at school. Throughout the school year, kids who had clothes that others viewed as dirty and old were made fun of. On a daily basis, they faced the twisted looks, questions and taunts from the other kids. I was afraid that returning to school in January without new Christmas clothes would prompt those reactions.

One Frightful Year
I can recall the feelings of worry and nervousness churning in my stomach before the first day back to school one year, so much so that it actually hurt. I had nothing new to wear, and my favorite clothes I had just worn. I wasted too much time moping, my body curled over with my hand holding up my head, trying to think of what I was going to do. I didn’t convey these emotions to my mother, thinking she might view them as trivial and stupid because somewhere inside of me, I thought they were also. Deep down I felt that material things didn’t matter, but there was that small pest with the thunderous voice in my head saying “materials do matter!”

The first day back to school that year I wore a navy blue hoodie with an enormous sunny yellow Ecko rhino on it, a pair of light-washed Old Navy Jeans and a pair of classic white (slightly worn) Adidas. That definitely wasn’t my style. I know I had something a little more stylish in my closet, at the time I thought it was the best I could do. Though I probably didn’t look that bad, I felt like crap. When I arrived at school tons of negative thoughts were running through my head, and I honestly thought it was going to be the worst day of my life. Like a lot of people, I tend to think of the worst-case scenario when things don’t seem to be going well. I could vividly imagine what would happen as I walked into the gym, everyone pointing, looking and laughing at me.

As you can probably guess, none of that really happened. Most people treated me as if I was the same person before the break and didn’t even comment on what I wore. A few people scanned me up and down, then asked, “You didn’t get nothin’ for Christmas?”
I would embarrassingly tell them, “No, I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

In return, they would blankly stare and reply, “Oh.”

Initially, I felt a little embarrassed, but minutes after I would be fine.

My New Take on Christmas
After that small ordeal, it took me another Christmas to get over my slight phobia. I guess I figured that my mother wasn’t going to start celebrating Christmas any time soon, so I might as well get over it. I used to think my mother didn’t observe Christmas simply because she didn’t believe in it, but now I know that it is much more to it than

that. I have a new understanding of the Christmas holiday. I now think that holidays have been turned into times to get the consumer to buy, buy, buy. It’s kind of amusing how the stores begin to drown in red and green about a month before the actual holiday.

Even though I don’t observe Christmas, I have grown up celebrating Kwanzaa. It is a seven-day celebration beginning on December 26 and ending on January 1. Kwanzaa isn’t a celebration that involves a lot of material things, but rather seven principles that unify and strengthen the community — one of them being Imani, meaning faith. A different principle is observed each day. Although the focus of Kwanzaa isn’t giving gifts, handmade gifts called Zawadi are exchanged. Zawadi is a word form the Swahili language spoken in eastern Africa. I even exchange gifts with friends and family members who observe Christmas as just another way to show my love.

I now know that it shouldn’t be my clothes that really matter, but how I am inside. Who I am doesn’t change after Christmas.

Akure is a sophomore at Grady High. Her motivation for getting out of bed: food.