Nunani: Is desperate celebration a return to old ways?

RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK

I’ve never known an Inuk to get upset because I didn’t send a Christmas card.

However, I remembered recently that a friend of mine of Scottish ancestry was hurt one year because I didn’t send her a card.
“It’s Christmas!” she cried. “You always send people cards around Christmas! That’s how it’s done! That’s how it’s always been done!”

“But I’m calling you on the phone,” I said (I was in the North at the time). “We’re able to talk. Isn’t that better than some piece of paper with cheap glittery stuff on it?”

“Well look, Rachel, I’m glad to hear from you and all. But, next time, send a card too,” she said. “It’s a tradition. Christmas isn’t quite right without it.”

I conceded, thoroughly chastened. And I did try to remember to send cards for a while, but soon I forgot again. I can’t help it – I dislike cards intensely. They are someone else’s thoughts racked up for purchase and they seem, therefore, somehow insincere.

So I was surprised to discover that card-giving is a fairly recent invention. It began in Victorian England and has been in practice for only about a century, compared with the seventeen centuries December 25th (a date fixed by Pope Julius I) has officially been the Mass of Christ.

I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve heard a lot of chatter about the meaning of Christmas. But I’m disappointed that it’s often just treated as a huge party.

Christmas is a version of the winter festival celebrated by many cultures. Some of these celebrations began centuries before Christ. If you’re Christian, it makes sense that the celebration is in honour of Christ. But for non-Christians, the winter festival is no less real, no less necessary.

Celebrations are necessary because it is the time before the worst of winter begins. It is a pause in normal events. All the cultures that endure winter have some kind of festival during this time, in anticipation of the hardships on the horizon.

I sometimes refer to it as the timeless festival, because it is as though we pretend, for a brief while, to stop the march of seasons and take time out for the joy of it.

It is no coincidence that the Twelve Days of Christmas cover approximately the same length of time as the traditional Inuit celebration of Quviasugvik. It’s just the right amount time to recover from the hardships of the past seasons and prepare for those yet to come.

In even the most ancient cultures, the winter festival was always the time of feasts and games – when labour and normal codes of behaviour were set aside.

I think this is why, as times get tougher, we see more emphasis on desperate celebration, and it seems that Christmas and New Year meld into one. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In a way, it represents an attempt to return to older ways.

So treasure your hard-earned bubble of timelessness and return to work with a lighter heart. Think of it as a kind of “Santa Pause.”

Pijariiqpunga.