In my family, Christmas was not Jesus’ feast. It was ours. There was of course a meticulous attention paid to all the symbolism surrounding this great day: the tree, the midnight mass composed of three masses, in fact, the mass of the Angels, of the Shepherds and (finally!) Of the divine Word – I remember it as if it were yesterday, my father was organist on this occasion – the tourtière and the giving of gifts. Regardless of how old we were, we knew how to genuflect, wherever it was needed.
But the spirit of rejoicing had very little to do with the divine child and everything to do with our own bliss. Christmas was the one time of the year when everyone in the family loved each other. There was a calm, a serenity, a warmth which, in my memory anyway, was unique at this precise moment of the year. Suddenly knitted tight, we found ourselves in a bubble, aware of sharing the same blood, the same sorrows, the same desire to be happy.
Christmas has that power. In 1914, German soldiers came out of their trenches on December 25 to shake hands with their enemies, singing Christmas carols. As if, for just one day of the year, we were here on Earth like astronauts in space. Able to see us from above, to overlook our condition as ants, to forget the pettiness and rivalries to feel intrinsically connected to each other, to feel ourselves inhabiting another dimension.
Admit that this “brief moment of splendor”, to borrow from a novel title very popular at the present time *, is good. We’ve spent almost two years now wanting to slit the throat of the cheeky man who squeezed into the line the pandemic has accustomed us to, not to mention the lady yelling at you because your mask slipped a half -centimeter under your nose – your nose which, in addition, runs because you arrive from outside and it is cold and you may blow your nose to alert the management of the establishment and, what do I know, the firefighters ?
Two years of not knowing which way to go. To be told that, given your age, you had better stay home. Two years getting used to things you never thought you could get used to: shopping for clothes online, attending funerals online, teaching online with absolutely no idea who is listening to you or if you are even being listened to. It’s hard and it is not because it takes hold, this damn pandemic, that it ceases to be. Completely the opposite.
We really need Christmas right now. What the hell have we been chewing for two years! The pandemic, it was believed, was going to force us to see further, bigger, to be more ecological, to join together on a planetary scale. You want to laugh ? Judging by the mood of the people queuing for the new health manna, the quick self-tests, the angels in our countryside weren’t really there on Monday morning.
– The government should have planned this long before, damn it.
– Why weren’t we offered a third dose three weeks ago?
– I don’t mind freezing if I’m going to get my kit, but no way I’m freezing my butt for nothing!
More ant than that, you die pulverized under the boot of a Canadian soldier come to lend a hand to the “war effort”.
Anyway, we should not be discouraged, says the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé. No doubt he believes in his duty to maintain the morale of the troops without understanding that by dint of encouraging us to put one small foot in front of the other, by dint of betting on the immediate which also risks being contradicted tomorrow. , we all end up condemned to play platform managers. And to die for boredom. When are the proposals to help us lift our heads and see a little further? Is the reform of CHSLDs coming? Oh, home care! A massive investment in arts and culture, perhaps? What about the reduction of greenhouse gases? The reform of the voting system, as we know, we can no longer even talk about it.
In these last days of 2021, we live in a church basement atmosphere. The chairs are hard, the tablecloths plastic, and you don’t know what the weather is like outside. So, warmly Christmas.
Quick, let’s take our tongues off the frozen ramp of small-time politics and ask ourselves the fundamental question of this time blessed by the gods: what do we wait to be happy?
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (anyway). This column will be back on January 12.
On Twitter: @ fpelletier1
* Ocean Vuong, A brief moment of splendor. Trad. from English (United States) by Marguerite Capelle. Gallimard, 288 pages.