Tag Archives: Christmas

Hopeful Minimalism

I’ve noticed a trend in my blogging over recent years: it seems that, each year, I write a post right around now about how Christmas just doesn’t feel like Christmas.

Well, far be it from me to break tradition, so here it is.

Christmas decorations are basically non-existent for us this year, because, as I am a full-time student for a few more months, most of our  Christmas stuff is in storage. I’m contenting myself with the annual re-syncing of my phone’s music library to contain my Christmas music (there’s a lot), and a single Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Granted, Charlie Brown’s Christmas seems to have an especially important, even theological, role to play in my Christmas each year, so I’m not really complaining.

Advent? That’s in progress, but I’m missing it. There’s simply no time to make time.

In fact, anything other than school, family, or the sporadic writing binge essentially isn’t happening right now. In fact, I’m doing well to manage the first two, forget the third in that list. So, there’s some disappointment in me that’s driving the beginning of (my recognition of) the Christmas season this year. Disappointment because I will have no time for my hobbies or the the things with which I unwind for the next few months. Disappointment because school is to effect a career change, and the stress that goes along with that is crushing at times. Disappointment because, while I don’t miss where we used to live, I do miss our friends. Disappointment because I had always wanted to move on in an academic career, do another degree, maybe even be a professor, but I’ve given up on that dream, because being a student again at this point in my life…even for just a few months for a quick, non-degree certification…is more than I can effectively manage with a family, so I see no way that we could make it for two years or more if I completed another degree. I mourn the loss of that dream in a very pronounced way.

Yet, Christmas isn’t about disappointment, it’s about hope. And, perhaps there’s a built-in Advent experience in the fact that the dusk I’ve described above must necessarily lead to a dawn in the near future. The season lends itself to hope, hope for positive changes that could be just around the corner, hope that  political and national differences could be set aside in the name of peace for this most holy of seasons, and that we might spend more time finding what unites us rather than what divides us.

Hope for civility.

Hope for miracles, or rather my ability to see them as they already occur.

(Perhaps I should mention hope that I learn to live with real winters, again.)

Hope that, on the other side of this Christmas season, we find ourselves not necessarily more prosperous, but more grateful, more loved, more connected with what is outside of ourselves.

May your days be merry and bright…

A Review of “Batman: Noel”

Batman: NoelBatman: Noel by Lee Bermejo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Batman:Noel is a one-shot graphic novel making its debut for this Holiday season. Essentially, the novel is a re-imagining of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, casting Batman/Bruce Wayne as Scrooge, justifying his willingness to use a man named Bob, a man who is stuck in a dead-end job and chooses to carry packages for the Joker in order to handle the expenses of the medical bills for his son, Tim (see the parallels?). Batman weaves a plan to exploit Bob and use him as bait to bring the Joker out of hiding, despite the fact that this will endanger Tim, as well as Bob. Batman sees this as a valid tactic, because the goal of taking villainy off the streets of his city justifies any method, including risking those he sees as guilty, and their families.

And thus, from the beginning, Bermejo presents the reader with a bitter Batman, a hero lost and consumed in his passion to defeat evil at any cost, including potential harm to innocents. We see a Batman who has permitted his own tragic history to place his soul at risk. We see Scrooge in the Dark Knight, placing his plan in motion on Christmas Eve, because its just another day, a day like any other.

Of course, staying true to the classic story line, Batman is thus visited by three people who attempt to show him where he has gone off track, and who attempt to win him back over to being the hero he once was at this most sacred time of year, the Christmas Holiday. Catwoman appears as the Ghost of Christmas Past, leading Batman to re-live the passion, optimism, and principles that he once held. Superman appears as the Ghost of Christmas Present, gently breaking the Batman’s self-perception of being the respected bringer of justice who is beyond question by permitting him to overhear the true concerns about how he is about to go over the edge that are voiced by Commissioner Gordon and members of his police force. Lastly, the Joker finally appears, drawn in beautifully terrifying and hideous form, as the Ghost of Christmas Future, attacking Batman and leading him to imagine, in an unconscious state, the future as it might play out should he continue down the path that he is traveling. This sequence takes place in a hellish dream state that is in marked contrast to the cool, dark, and foreboding art that makes up the rest of the novel.

Bermejo hints at a love for Dicken’s work in his dedications, and this feels like a expertly-crafted homage to the author he seems to identify as such a huge influence on him. He captures the essence of Dicken’s story here, making it all the more poignant by presenting Scrooge’s tragically flawed nature in one we have come to know as a hero. He encapsulates his story of redemption in a statement from the narrator in the beginning of the novel, a statement that is the thesis of Bermejo’s work here:

“‘Cuz for this story to make sense…for it to mean anything…you have to believe in something. Something very important. You have to believe that people can change.”

This is particularly fascinating as we see Batman drifting in danger of becoming an anti-hero. Bermejo is presenting us with the hero who has always seen every human being, even the worst of villains, as being candidates for redemption , now desperately needing that redemption himself. Watching the Dark Night Detective move through the journey to that redemption is powerful, and complete with a theological statement of re-birth in a striking half-page panel as  Batman rises from the grave in which the Joker has left him, returning to a new life and purpose from the death that his bitterness has brought about, resurrected, as it were, to a clearer…and more heroic…purpose.

The art throughout the novel is pristine and brilliant, with floating fonts superimposed over the panels as the unseen narrator moves us through the story. Bermejo’s dialogue shines as much as his overall storyline, making a graphic novel that is difficult to put down.

For any superhero fan, and certainly for any Batman fan, Batman:Noel is an exploration of redemption in the truest Christmas fashion. In fact, if you’re new to graphic novels altogether, this would be a great place to start.

View all my reviews

Decorative Outlooks

This is a beautiful, ornately decorated and lit basket that I purchased from a colleague several years ago. I bought it as a gift to my parents for Christmas. And, in my most humble opinion, it is one of the coolest Christmas gifts I’ve ever purchased!

Karen and I are spending this Christmas with my end of the family, based not quite as far North as Karen’s side, but still far enough to be substantially colder. My parents are notorious for being a bit elaborate with the Christmas light show, but they manage to avoid being gaudy or tacky. Christmas decorations are a curious thing. Its no surprise, I don’t think, that we illuminate our nights with festive lighting at the time of year when daylight is shortest, and days of dreary weather can depress the most optimistic among us. For those of us who celebrate Christmas, this is a most celebratory of occasions, marking the moment when history altered forever, both in the realms of the finite and the Infinite. We celebrate, in part, by shining lights into the darkness, a literal symbol of the most poetic description of He whose birth we observe. Even the most environmentally conscious among us become quickly tolerant of electric candles in our windows and Christmas trees lit from dusk to bedtime.

I love our Christmas tree, what Karen refers to as a “memory tree.” Our ornaments are a collection from our past, both our lives before we met and our subsequent adventures together. I have a Santa from my freshman year in college, and a paper gingerbread man from my first real job after college. We have an ornament from the beach where we spent our honeymoon, and an ornament from our trip to the International Spy Museum.

The reason I love this theme of decoration for our Christmas tree is because it allows me to end our year by re-visiting some of the best moments of our lives, talk about the moments that happened before we met, be thankful for the adventures that we’ve had, and anticipate the adventures that are yet to come.

How do you decorate your tree? Why?

I wish you all a most blessed and peaceful of Holidays.

Output

Now that our Christmas tree and lights are up and twinkling their soft white glow into our apartment, combining with the fireplace to form the perfect atmosphere in which to engage Holiday festivities, I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special Sunday night. I cannot properly be focused on the Holiday until I’ve watched it. It orients me, focuses me on the true Holiday and away from the consumer rush.

I hear that there is a replica of Charlie Brown’s tree that is most popular this year. I considered buying it…but that would be consumer…

I found something poetic in our Christmas lights this year. Actually, I discovered it last year, but didn’t end up posting about it.

I’ve always preferred top floor apartments for the privacy that they afford (and I always second-guess this decision each weekend when I bring groceries up four flights of stairs…but that’s a different issue). The advantage to the top floor is also that you can look out over the rest of the buildings and parking lots and see things. Right now, if I look out of our sun room windows, I see candles illuminating other windows, balcony rails aglow with white lights similar to our own, and Christmas trees shining back at me from windows all around, as our own tree is glowing behind unpulled blinds, there for the viewing of whomever looks up or in.

Normally, I always close our blinds at night. Most people do, I think. The fact that so many apartments here have chosen to not do so in order for their trees to be seen speaks to something. Its sort of like we’re giving that little gift to those around us at the expense of our privacy. “I’ve made this beautiful to look at…won’t you enjoy it with me?” There was effort involved in these decorations. There is something given up in leaving blinds open. It may be small…perhaps on both counts…but its symbolic. Symbolic of some of the substance of Christmas: giving up something that costs us simply so others can benefit.

Its small, like this post, but I think its significant. We’re only a little over a week away, after all, and I’ve watched Charlie Brown, which means I can now become properly sentimental.

Blessed Advent to you all.

Weekend Lights

The thought occurred to me at some point during the week that I really should be considering Christmas decorations soon. I suppose it came up because I started seeing trees and stockings up around the workplace of the day job, and I started thinking about where the tree and so forth is in our storage closet. With adding our daughter to the family and recovering from Thanksgiving travels (I was oddly jet-lagged this year), I simply haven’t devoted much consideration to the fact that the Christmas holiday is really only days away.

Now begins the series of loose traditions that we tend to keep this time of year: watching a few movies, listening to Christmas jazz and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, planning family visits, and so forth. I’ve decided to put up lights and our tree tonight, and we attended a mid-week service for the first week of Advent this week.

And, as its the first week of Advent (very nearly the second as I write this), I think that this is a perfectly good time to begin these festivities.

What I haven’t given much thought to is gifts. We’ve picked up a couple here and there, and my parents have asked us for our list. I’ve thought of the family members to which we ship gifts each year. I just really haven’t felt the pressure to rush out and buy things and send them off. I’m intentionally trying to keep it at bay, as well as my desire to receive any gifts beyond some simple things, or needed things.

Then, of course, Karen mentioned that I might be getting a new iPhone for Christmas, and my materialism kicked right in.

I just don’t want it to be this. I wish it were something more. I know that it can be something more. Attending just a brief Advent service this week calmed me, gave me a sense of peace, a sense of focus. That’s what I want to hold onto this season. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy a rushed shopping trip or two with the family, but what I’m most interested in is family, and faith, this Christmas season. Gifts will happen, but they will be incidental. And most certainly not a source of stress, because that will defeat the point.

Suddenly, it seems like that could be quite the accomplishment if I can pull it off. I’m going to give it a good attempt, though. And now I’m going to work on decorations.

Photo Attribution: Life’s Too Short