Lessons from Gremlins

Everyone forgets that Gremlins is a Christmas movie.

I can understand why.

Who wouldn’t rather watch Jimmy Stewart running around Bedford Falls wishing everyone a Merry Merry and helping Clarence get his wings.

But for me, Gremlins is the more appropriate Yuletide watch.

I love the sly, campy humour and unsubtle debunking of Christmas traditions. But in terms of anti-christmas spirit, my favourite scene is the one where Kate (Phoebe Cates) tells us why she hates the holiday season.

Her father’s fatal chimney abseil leaves the family with understandably mixed feelings about Christmas.

He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly.
And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.
You say you hate Washington's Birthday or Thanksgiving and nobody cares, but you say you hate Christmas and people treat you like you're a leper.”

Of course, most of us (hopefully) don’t have such a traumatic reason to hate Christmas.

But there’s still a lot to dislike about the average dysfunctional family Christmas, including the tension, hostility and drunken truth-telling that gets passed around the table along with the crackers and champagne.

Whether it’s Uncle Bob’s intrusive questions about our sadly intemperate sex-life or feeling like a bad-tempered 9 year old despite being a card-carrying adult with the student loans and tension headaches to prove it, we all have plenty of ordinary reasons to hate Christmas.

I remember when I still celebrated Christmas with my family. My mother was still alive and she insisted we all gather around and make happy families.

I used to rush to the shops (along with everyone else) and buy up big for my sisters, their children AND their husbands. Totalling hundreds of dollars. I usually came away from the gift giving with a perfunctory $10 - $20 gift.

I don’t know when it finally dawned on me, but I eventually came to the conclusion that I was being dudded.

Of course I don’t deny that my sisters did a lot of the heavy lifting for Christmas, generously opening up their homes, cooking, cleaning and generally being convivial. But for me it was a big effort to organise myself and my presents, travel interstate and get a taxi to my sister’s outer-suburban home.

One year, I humbly asked for a lift from the airport. That was seen as beyond the pale, so it was another expensive taxi or stressful airport bus ride. I knew it was a long drive, so the refusal itself didn’t bother me, but the anger at my temerity and the lack of understanding or validation got under my skin.

That was the last straw.

The next year, I decided that I wasn’t going to buy presents anymore - for anyone.

This somewhat oppositional stance eventually melded with the minimalist, anti-consumerist zeitgeist and I felt less out on a limb.

To their credit, my family adapted to this left-of-field pronouncement. Perhaps because I had clear boundaries (for once). One of my sisters always made sure I didn’t leave empty handed, gifting me a bottle of expensive wine or some scented candles. I appreciated the inclusive gesture.

But Christmas has always brought mixed feelings. And I guess I’m not alone.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s fun to see everyone. Especially my nieces and nephews. But in the end we all decided that we didn’t actually enjoy our family Christmas and would prefer to spend our time and money elsewhere.

It wasn’t worth the stress.

I understand the misgivings we all have around the holidays. Spending time with those we know and dislike. Reliving those dysfunctional dynamics you thought you escaped by moving cities.

So I give all of us permission.

It’s OK to ban Christmas.

To just not celebrate.

To spend the time with Hello Fresh and Netflix.

To go to Bali with a friend.

Happy Hanukka.