Raise a Glass for Everyone

Many know that I have issues with the holidays. I do not consider myself a Christian, and I battle anxiety, so from Thanksgiving forward the weighty press of prompts to be cheerful and giving and set all activities around a holiday celebrating the birth of one religion's main protagonist is really hard for me.

However, I will reveal a little secret that you can use if you absolutely need to get me in the holiday spirit immediately. Play Band-Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" When those deep bells start to chime against that effects-heavy drum, I stop and smile widely, my head tilting upwards (waiting, no doubt, for a kiss from Simon Le Bon). In two lines, Boy George reminds us that he could have been remembered as a great soul singer and not a picker-upper of roadside trash (the same goes for George Michael). Bananarama's uber-slouchy sweatshirts stand against the short skirts and booby tops that the record company would have made them sport today. And my favorite part is when Bono practically elbows his way in between Sting and Simon Le Bon to sing his line.

As you may know, the whole project was an attempt to raise money for starving children in Ethiopia, and despite the problems associated with this project, I count it as truly the beginning of the idea that service to others was an integral part of people's lives. I can testify that before 1984, the idea of community service was never something expected from the general public.

But now that I am aware of how much Christianity dominates the latter quarter of each year, there are a few things about the song that bother me. It's not really the geographic ignorance expressed in some of the lyrics ("No rain or rivers flow?" Really? What do you call the Nile?). It's the suggestion that the poor Ethiopians are so damaged that they can't celebrate Christmas as we do.

Statistically, 60 percent of the country is Christian, but about 30 percent is Muslim, and the rest practice traditional religions. And of the 60 percent who are Christians, 40 percent are Orthodox, which means they celebrate Christmas in January, when Western Christians have already gone back to work and exchanged their gifts. So I am bothered that a song that has meant so much to me is actually quite insensitive to the actual religious practice of the country it claims to be helping.

One could argue that the important sentiment is not when in the calendar year the holidays of the needy fall, but that others decide to use the occasion of their religious holiday to help the less fortunate. Oh, but you have walked into one of my carefully laid logical traps if you do! One of the most insidious holiday stress-inducers is the feeling of guilt we get as we shop and sparkle and Champagne and sweet ourselves into a stupor. To atone, we decide, around December 18, to volunteer somewhere. So we call around to women's shelters begging for a family to "adopt."

I say, save the giving for May or August, when the needy have been forgotten about for the year. Or, give all year-round. Show up a few times each month at the homeless shelter, have Habitat for Humanity debit $20 per month out of your account, or make it a practice to only buy free-trade coffee. Heck, get really wild and support universal health care for all. Perhaps the idea that anyone is hungry at any time of the year will soon become as unacceptable as the desire to just jet away to Tahiti for the last two weeks of December.