Christmas at home

It's been a while since I last wrote, and I feel bad about that, given how often I used to post in earlier times. But such is the way of things.

The last year or so has been busy for me, mostly in the good sense (new girlfriend, new job routine, new places traveled to), but not spectacularly good for news (about the city, or the country or the world as a whole, for that matter). I seem to remember apologizing for a seemingly endless string of depressing political posts. I don't want to do that again.

Christmas season is about to end, thank Jeebus, and truth be told it doesn't seem like "the crisis" has hit that hard. Judging from the sheer volume of the throngs that squeezed along every inch of the downtown commercial streets last Monday (that's when I went gift-shopping myself), there's still lots of spare change in people's pockets for one last spending binge. The soft credits promised by the government have still failed to materialize (and seriously, nobody thinks they will, or at least it's highly doubtful they get past the nicest parts of Greater Buenos Aires) but retired people have got their extra 200 pesos, there'll be a similar supplement for minimum-wage workers and welfare benefits, and it seems the tendency to pay the aguinaldo before the holidays, instead of in January, has caught on.

As for me, I spent an unexpected amount buying little gifts for everyone in the family, which now includes Marisa's parents and her brother's family of three. Back in 2000, when I first got a stable job, and for more than a couple of years after that, I didn't earn enough for such luxuries as gifts, so now I love having the chance, although the act of going around and choosing the actual gifts is still stressful, being such a detail freak.

Since Marisa and I will each have dinner with our own families, and both driving yourself or getting a cab are virtually impossible on Christmas, we exchanged gifts days ago. I promised not to peep, so as to keep the surprise until tonight. There's no-one left at home that believes in Papá Noel (Santa Claus), and of course I don't believe anybody of divine origin was born on December 25, but one comes to appreciate the symbolic importance of waiting until midnight, as is the custom in Argentina, to open the shiny, bow-topped packages and peer inside to see what our loved ones thought we'd find nice or useful.

These days are exhausting, what with the summer heat and the crowded shopping malls and the explosion of red-and-green kitsch everywhere, and it's true that more people than usual feel depressed or lonely at this time of the year. In this sense I loathe Christmas. But maybe we should have more of it. It wouldn't be so special, but maybe one week as each season turns into the next, with less of a focus in overdoing (overspending, overeating, overdrinking) and more of simple expectation and celebration of our continued friendship. Our ancestors (no matter who they were exactly) had a developed awareness of seasonal change; why couldn't we? Imagine four short holiday seasons instead of a protracted one — better for the economy, for our digestive system, and for our inner peace.

Here's to a happy and peaceful Christmas, to all my readers. I'll see you again sooner than expected, I hope.

Just be merry

Now that Christmas has been reduced to leftovers and torn wrapping paper, let me say something about the first comment I received on my last post (the one about the Palacio Minetti). I felt it was appropriate to wish everybody a nice day — in particular, a "merry Christmas" to those who believe in the myth of Baby Jesus. One of my readers was apparently offended by my choice of words, and upon my ironic (but harmless) reply he proceeded to tell me that we "condescending atheists" are "disqualified" (from commenting on Christmas, I take it?).

Let's make a few things clear. Christmas etymologically means "the Mass of Christ". It's originally the commemoration of the birth of Jesus, the supernaturally-conceived son of the Judeo-Christian God, from an allegedly virginal Galilean Jewish woman called Maryām, about 2,014 years ago.* It's a myth, in the sense that it's not plain historical fact, but it doesn't need to be "real", in the strictest sense, to be meaningful. Christmas means different things to different people, including next to nothing but a consumerist spree and an occasion of food and drink binges for the majority of the Western world.

*As you must know, Jesus (if we're to use the Gospels as historical sources) must have been born in the spring or summer of 6 BCE or 4 BCE, not in the winter of 1 BCE as assumed by our calendar and our choice of date to celebrate Christmas. Shepherds don't tend their herds outdoors in the middle of winter; Herod the Great died in 4 BCE according to trustable sources, and the Roman governor Quirinus (the one that ordered the census mentioned in Luke) ruled in 6 BCE. The Gospel story was composed much later and is very badly done consistency-wise, both myth-internally and history-externally. This is something that Christian scholars have known for centuries, though you wouldn't hear it from your local priest.

The Christmas myth does nothing for me. I don't believe that one should cherish the "Christmas spirit" when one doesn't pay attention to Christ or his alleged teachings during the whole year, and then tries to sum them up in "let's be nice to each other, just once". Yet I know many people who believe in the myth, in its entirety or in a watered-down version; a number of readers of this blog probably belong in either group, and I wanted to let them know that I wished the best for their Christmas. I don't pretend to respect their myth as if it were meaningful to me, but I respect them.

In the end, of course, most people do the same things for the Christmas season, regardless of their beliefs. Everybody gathers (when possible) with the family, and eats a lot of high-calorie foods, and drinks a lot, and while some families quarrel, some others find this a suitable time for reconciliation and forgiveness. In Argentina, many (mostly older people) attend Mass early in the evening, and many (mostly younger ones) go out after midnight. Children open up presents. Grown-ups end up debating football or politics. Fireworks are launched. Hospitals' ERs get crowded with dozens of wounded from corks popping into eyes, burned from mishandling fireworks, and injured in alcohol-induced fights. At dawn, the streets end up littered with plastic bags, broken cider bottles, and passed-out teens. People take a second look at their presents and either decide to hang them in the walls or put them on their desks or wear them, or store them in some place away from sight. Children enjoy their new toy cars, videogames, toy firearms, and flashy T-shirts. Drowsy grown-ups pick up the leftovers and recycle them for Christmas Day lunch.

What this all has to do with Baby Jesus is beyond me, but if you choose to cling to that adorable myth, you don't have to be ashamed of it. We all have our inspiring visions. But a baby born two millennia ago from the immaterial touch of a ghost and doomed to be nailed to a wooden beam 33 years later because of my as-yet-uncommitted sins isn't a vision I can share, and political correctness isn't my forte. Hence, the different salutations: if you do believe in Baby Jesus, then celebrate his birth and be merry about it; if not, just be merry for whatever reason you can come up with. (The latter, of course, is what most people end up doing, no matter what their professed beliefs are.)

I understand there are cultural differences. I understand the United States has (or has had) this ridiculous "War on Christmas". It's not like that here, by and large. I don't know where that commenter wrote from, but for all the problems we have in Argentina, we don't have that kind of division running along our society. If I get a "merry Christmas" from anybody, I can tell him or her that I don't believe in Jesus, and all I'll get will be a blank stare meaning "well, and what's that have to do with anything?".

Palacio Minetti (almost)

Last Saturday, after the Year's End evening event at the Flag Memorial, the Rosarigasinos were supposed to be climbing to the roof of the Palacio Minetti, an impressive Art Déco building on Córdoba St., to take pictures from there. There was a delay, somebody wasn't available to let us in, so we went and had some coffee at the Palace Garden shopping mall nearby (if you come to Rosario, don't — Palace Garden's coffee was cold, watered down, and late).

About 40 minutes later, we gathered before the Palacio Minetti and entered the lobby. The doorman then came down and proceeded to tell us that no, we were not allowed to come up to the roof. There had been some confusion, all sorts of bureaucratic thingies would have to be written down, yadda yadda. No marvelous rooftop photos for us. We were left with some shots of the front door and the elevator doors.

There were some other pictures later, and some light lunch at Veracruz, and then mate at El Cairo... But that was it. Sunday was rain, rain and more rain, but Monday (just as I'm posting this) seems to be heading for a very nice sunny day and a cool Christmas Eve.

For you who believe in those things, have a merry Christmas. The rest of us, take this holiday as a good excuse to get in touch and enjoy a few hours with your loved ones, and to exercise tolerance when meeting your inevitable not-so-loved ones. See you later!

Cantemos la Navidad 2007

Cantemos la Navidad 2007 — by Koluso

The picture is from my fellow photographer Beto. I wasn't among the crowd at the time, but sitting on the opposite wall flanking the courtyard of the Flag Memorial, last night. The people with the star-shaped candles are singing along "Silent Night", ending a night of Christmas carols that traditionally joins a professional chorus and the public every year.

Yes, yours truly was there singing Christmas carols, along with 12,000 other people, invocations to the eternal grace of (the non-existant) God and all, and enjoying every moment of it. I blame my girlfriend, she blames me. Truth be told, it was a fabulous night with great vibes, so there's really nothing to blame.

Cantemos la Navidad is an annual event, sponsored by a well-known local insurance company and has enjoyed popularity for almost 20 years (if I recall correctly). The director of the choir, Cristián Hernández Larguía, is a 86-year-old man with the energy of a teenager. He has the choir sing once, and then gets the people to sing along, aided by music sheets and lyrics handed to the attendees as they arrive at the site of the event.

I enjoy singing, though I prefer doing it while no-one's listening (or, as in this case, when everybody else is also singing). I would've sung praises to something other than imaginary holy virgins and their supposedly divine offspring, but anyway, those myths are not meant to be taken seriously in most parts of the civilized world, even in Christmas, anymore, and the idea was just having fun. Joining a vibrant song with thousands of fellow human beings really brings up your spirit.

(Mostly) Silent Night

Ah, the holiday season! Would it be correct to say that I hate it? Probably not, but I'd rather be elsewhere when it happens. In these days of globalization and intrusive media coverage of everything you can't really escape Christmas, though.

Aside from my own issues, Christmas Eve was fairly uneventful. The streets were full of people desperately shopping for that last gift, or looking for that last bottle of cider, champagne, or whatever bubbly beverage they happened to prefer. As it grew dark (after 8 PM), some fireworks and noisy pyrotechnic bombs started flying, against a background of thick black clouds. The fireworks used to be a real show a few years ago, and a nightmare for dogs (loud noises up in the air scare dogs witless!), but this time they were almost absent, and when as it began raining, they almost vanished, until near midnight. (By the way, I'd never seen so much rain and for so much time in my whole life.) In the previous days, the Urban Guard had set up controls to search for illegal fireworks in private vehicles as they entered the city; there are no fireworks factories in Rosario, but there are a few in the neighbouring towns, where regulations are non-existant or easier to circumvent.

Fortunately, I have a small family (sometimes I wish it were even smaller, but at least the undesirable branches of my genealogical tree were having dinner elsewhere), so we gathered around a table and ate and drank peacefully, and after exchanging gifts and eating some more, we went to bed quite early. I've been going out for years on Christmas, after the final toast, but I made no plans this year, and with the horrible weather it was not a good idea anyway; plus it's usually an odyssey to get a bus or a taxi on Christmas night until 2 AM. (The municipality says they were monitoring the frequency of the public transport and that they'll fine those who did not supply the service appropriately; I'll believe it when I see it.)

It was peaceful in the city as well: the authorities report that in Rosario there were less than 20 traffic accidents (all minor), a few people wounded by blade weapons, and others (less than 10) burned or injured by pyrotechnic devices. And, probably because of the increased controls, only one case of drunken driving. All in all, it was nothing compared to previous Christmas nights, and closer to regular weekends. Buenos Aires, on the other hand, seems to have had a painful night; for some reason people continue to like hands-on explosive handling and getting corks projected at high speeds into their eyeballs.

Except for the injuries and burns, I do hope New Year's night is more fun than this.