By Hilary McMurray

The snow’s gently falling, there’s a nip in the air, you hear carolers on every corner … ahh, ’tis the season.

OK. Now you’re getting splashed with slush as you’re crossing the street, there’s a funky stench in the air and you hear horns honking incessantly on every corner … it’s Christmas time in the city!

Christmas is full of ironies. It is a bipolar holiday, switching from one end of the spectrum to another and back again with no warning. It’s the “most wonderful time of the year,” yet more suicides occur during the Christmas season than any other holiday season. We send out cards that say “Peace on Earth and Mercy Mild,” but we feel that Scott Peterson deserves to die. We’ll drop a few coins in a Salvation Army bucket, but when a homeless man holds out his Dunkin’ Donuts cup asking for spare change, we tell him to get a job. We rejoice and celebrate the glory of the savior’s birth, but we run our mouths about certain groups of people who supposedly won’t be saved (hint: begins with G, ends with AY). Many of us experience stress as a result of trying to find the perfect gift for so-and-so, yet we won’t give to the people who are most in need.

The holiday season can be both heart warming and heart wrenching. TV holiday specials choose to focus on the heart warming side — the basic good of humanity. You know how the story goes: nice, white, upper middle-class person randomly meets a poor person. He listens to stories about how the poor person’s holidays suck because he can’t afford food and presents for his family. So the rich brat invites the poor sucker and his family over to have dinner in the suburbs, and everyone’s happy because they discovered the true meaning of Christmas. Cue sappy holiday music, and go in for the close-up on the white trash family’s smiles. Cut, go to BMW commercial.

So what does that poor person learn about the true meaning of Christmas? It probably goes something like, “Christmas is the time when greedy people relieve a year’s worth of guilt by throwing a can of food or two into a box so they can claim that they give back and want to help out those less fortunate.” Do we help because we feel guilty? Because we feel lucky and feel bad for those who aren’t lucky? Why not help just because?

As for the heart wrenching part of the holidays, John Mayer points out in my favorite song that “No one wants to be alone at Christmas time.” Another holiday irony is we spend so much time obsessing about the holiday trappings of gifts, decorations, dinners and, of course, parties, that we forget about the human side — the people we are getting gifts from, buying gifts for and donating stuff to. Maybe our letters to Santa should include a wish that no one has to be alone during the holidays. What good is having stuff if you have no one to share it with?

Think about the Jewish kid in a classroom full of Christians who has to sit through Christmas carols about Jesus. We’re a little more politically correct now than when I was in grade school (meaning that by high school, our chorus had to change the name of our December concert from “A Christmas Special” to “A Winter Holiday Special”), but I’m sure it still sucks to be the non-Christian kid in the classroom.

Think about our troops. They won’t be waking up spending the holidays with their families. Regardless of how you feel about the war, remember that your political leanings are your ideas; our troops are real people. Real people who are alone.

Think about the gay kid who knows if he is seen kissing his loved one under the mistletoe, it could cost him his life.

Think about couples with sick children. Imagine having to hear the song “It’s Baby’s First Christmas” while knowing that it could be your baby’s last Christmas.

I swear I’m not trying to depress anyone, I just want to point out that there are many aspects of the holiday season that are happy, sad, good and bad all at the same time. It’s great to do things like decorate trees (trust me, you can get really creative with the ornaments), send out cards, bake holiday cookies and play holiday music, but it doesn’t help anyone. While giving to Toys For Tots and other charitable organizations might make sure that someone has gifts, all the presents in the world don’t mean anything if you’re not surrounded by friends and family. Concern yourselves less with who you spend your money on and more with who you spend your time with, because that’s what the holidays are all about.

– Hilary McMurray can be reached at [email protected].