One of the great fears of Americans that someone steal their Christmas. Why does Santa Claus (or just not really the birth of Jesus), is ultimately their stuff. Because Christmas and America are made in the same league. Any American Tune is located in an area ideal that can be tuned and hold a Christmas melody, to dig into a Christmas carol, to host a Christmas cameo, or vice versa.
It 's like the colors favored by the Pilgrim Fathers imposed to agree with carol singing, a sort of unwritten rule that somehow everyone recognizes.
The U.S. EPA is generally the most Christmas you might think, considering that California or Texas may refer to the original sites, but in general, American cities, with a Christmas dress, make them look good. Christmas is the party that best fits with the natural love that Americans despite what they say or do to keep family. The prevailing colors are perfect tune with the party and add what is lacking in the decorations of the homes (inside and outside), some decidedly kitsch other truly spectacular: think of a nativity scene in front of clear glass in motion a house). The snow, one must not fail, although this year, having come first, and being planned for later, for Christmas she took leave. What I think is that maybe if Easter is culturally more appealing in Europe, the United States and perhaps the whole of America, the continent just came into the world, is steeped in the atmosphere of Christmas. But it is a consideration that is what it's worth. On this basis, it is important what follows.
United States, I said in my first post, a week before Christmas with only one soundtrack, and Christmas melodies never left you. Some are great crossroads of gender, others are at the limit nenach 'I know what: think of the song in which the child learns that mother kissing Santa Claus and he is shocked by this kind of adultery? incest? But somehow coming to glimpse the similarity between his father a bit 'fatter and Santa Claus. Apart from the content, however, perhaps nowhere so happens that all of a sudden Britney Spears and Hillary Duff, Michael Jackson and Eminem yield up to a week in fact they do not, because they record their album of Christmas songs (all, I would say, except Eminem). When the texts are in English, the result is often significant, a little 'Martian if Bing Crosby or Dean Martin or Mariah Carey sing Adeste Fideles in Latin.
note that many Hollywood movies have a Christmas theme, or are held at Christmas, the day of thanksgiving, the comics newspapers suffer a sharp steering and Christmas becomes the center of attraction, for good or evil, narrative (remember the Christmas letters of Sally Brown? but also Garfield, Dilbert, The Far Side, Blondie and Dagoberto, Calvin & Hobbes are involved in the case. Very different is the Christmas TinTin or Mafalda, even Mickey Mouse and the Muppets were appropriate here). That said, it is a fact that Americans are afraid that their ruby \u200b\u200bChristmas (the Grinch ), that another party from appropriating Santa Claus (The Nightmare Before Christmas ), and those who, like Linus, confuse Baby Jesus (at least in the early decades of Peanuts ), with the Great Pumpkin, well, are subversive sectarians.
If you think about it, that Christmas, in the absence of anything better to entrust us Boldi and / or De Sica, around the world (this year, I think, in the Big Apple) is the space heroism, contact with the man of God, the coming of the angels, the world is turned upside down: Do you remember Life is wonderful or more recently The Family Man or While You Were Sleeping? Large fictions that lead to large changes in this part of the world take place at Christmas, and usually reconciled to God, marriage, work, family, community and the general meaning of life ... and maybe change your life. There are people who change lives at Christmas: it is a fact, and this Christmas is a matter of life or death.
Yet for fear of losing it, the U.S. has unconsciously sowed the seeds of weeds along with the Christmas tree and the mistletoe. And little by little, without anyone being aware of it, the tree has lost its magic power, miraculous, calming, reconciling, to make way for a. ..
This year, the United States, there was Christmas. No call to 911 (remember the date of the attack on the Twin Towers? 911 is the national number for emergencies, which translated into day American states September 11).
Forgive me if I say with apparent disrespect. No crash of airplanes and skyscrapers. And nothing to report at airport controls. Not even a blurb in the NY Times or the Post, I said, I think, that the Child was represented, jingle bells, slides still run happy. Despite all this, Christmas has not arrived this year, Christmas in the USA: I did the good wishes of many people, in the week between 25 and 31 and the people I squared, really surprised. And to think that going around in the car with the classic Christmas carols and the most bizarre I was thrilled. Yet the Grinch was finally defeated (I'm aware, there will be a sequel , the pumpkin has not eaten the cabin ... in the meantime we were leaving in the ex-president Ford (always intended soon to be overshadowed) by James Brown and later by Saddam Hussein (but this is not a Christmas story, and maybe one day, when I am able, I'll tell you something about it). As for Christmas, Oh Oh Oh !, , some would say, where is it?
tracks lead me at the local mall, where a few days ago, I was greeted by Christmas jingle that extend from my Camry right into the huge paradise in its various heavens is called the Wal-Mart, Hallmark, Best Buy ... instead of Christmas, it was not me to wear, according to tradition, my gift to the child, as learned in catechism, rather I was to receive the gift: better late than never, is it really true that Americans are ahead in everything. And at first, I received a nice gift, electronic, or delicious candy. The cabin, meanwhile, had turned into a warehouse and everything was for free, which is the American way of saying free. And that means really free. With us or things are gifts or, if they are not free Of Love, are a rip off. No, the baseball cap gave it to me for real, the book's success as well ...
Enveloped by music, and crossed the threshold here, for a single dollar (which will never be a dollar less than a euro!), I could buy a gadget I had always dreamed of by, say, the fountain pen with the 'three-dimensional ink, or set to play basketball on the desk in the studio ... and then the mug, that is the mug for coffee, tea, and so on, with peanuts, garfield, the caricature of Bush, and more ... i have a mug almost hypnotic fascination. At that point, with two dreams in my pocket for just one dollar, I was logged in Christmas. The music was still in the background, only that I had messed up something at heart, or stomach, and that something put to rest my head ... At that point, my internal organs recorded a somersault imperiously and began to ask these eyes and the brain and this neck and neck the rest of the body to move, to look for something to serve them, no matter what, so mica with all the deals we're gone bankrupt and then it's nice to give things to others ... the portfolio, even better credit card, they appeared willing to give themselves spontaneously, especially the second without pain (the most painful Christmas shopping is writing checks, why not try this credit card? "read the sign outside the Mall"); money separate from my body, to which I would have rejoined the house or mentally anesthetized magnetic card from that painful and yet so full of promise) I had passed through the automatic doors of the mall owning myself and my ability, with a safety contact with my personal finances, while small, whereas now sailing between marshmallows (in Italian, Toffoletti) caramel and fascinating set of fishing 'hill, undecided on what I needed more for the year to come. What I need or I liked was now beyond any reasoning. Other than the veil of ignorance. They should have threw a blanket, turn off the light and fill the barrel to let us retrieve the legendary Enlightenment rationality.
short, a bit 'Pavlov was right, that of dogs, here is a preliminary Skinner, who has the dog's name, at least Pavlov longer master. With all due respect to dogs. And then Pavlov did not know them all. For example if you put some special objects near one another, they acquire a great capacity to refer to each other. That is, there is logic in combining small things (which resembles the psychosis of the gambler), a wife can help or lead to ruin, so it is said that all come to the end of the game, that is, buying on installment a mega-machine , computed a lawnmower or marry a belle di Reno (Nevada): I have not seen the shelves for that article, but maybe I missed some step. In short, if the great empires were created by a cent spared, as I had taught Scrooge mistreated, was costing me a cent, without realizing it, my whole anthropological self-representation: a set of desires that I was floating, bouncing to the little things that the addition of 6% VAT and put together, made the happiness of the cashiers and my guardian devil, that I finally whispered mockingly: "So Christmas comes only once a year." (Mom, do not worry, I have not done anything like that, but the effort was great, I'm saving for the complete set of Happy Days on DVD, but who does not have a target firm as my own, easily succumb to the empire of small desires).
So it's 25 days, to not misunderstand that, do not call Christmas, the day of the exchange of gifts. After all, the least important of all, because you already know what they receive and do not have expectations or not you imagine and then you wait for the next day ...
... day 26, the day when the Mall bursts because people go back and change presents, in large part because he liked them, because they did not serve any purpose because was all the result of a collective psychodrama, or because that gift was the right one, but in a matter of exchange rates and rebates, maybe you could swap it with a better one. Out of curiosity I went back to the Mall at the suggestion of a friend ("Go and see, see that you have fun!"). A crowd! And for a buck they catch something the first two days was worth 50! The music remained in the background, was more combative spirit (you have to grab the best bargains, get open and keep the line ! ) and however the cards with Christmas greetings, which I would buy a good Italian abroad a lower price after Christmas had already been removed. If greeted with a Merry Christmas, what sense could have to answer to my wishes for Christmas, after the gifts were returned? In Italy, however, remained to care for a child, just here to throw paper and working the next day (at most, a holiday , a word that unlike festival draws a blank.
The party of the poor want bizarre had passed, is the only resign and wait for the new year. The only thing to say is that the festival had become a party that continues is ending and that my mind (or my mind) they had suffered, I was reborn in a new life. Forgive me irony or sarcasm ... but actually this Christmas has come every Christmas as it should, unexpected, and changed me maybe more than many Christmases past.
I understand why John Grisham took a sabbatical from his legal thriller, to write three good books, one on the family and home, one on school and football, and a delightful comedy that is called by us "Escape from Christmas, "something that perhaps imitating the Krank family in the future we will also groped us.
For the American New Year, which arrives six hours after our own, at least in that we are ahead, the few words that deserves commemoration poor! I was never attracted much, maybe because I do not love about fireworks, but this year is because it encompasses a particular conception of time, or because it pushes you to rethink your life and start over, knowing that certainly does not not keep your intentions, but maybe this time so short, I got a bit 'fond. Maybe it's age. Here the new year, and because there are different time zones and then the years come "loose" what is the point to see the countdown in Times Square if Los Angeles is still 22:00?, Is reduced to a choreographic quote a countdown that could happen at any moment in world history, and who do not follow your mind or make changes, only publicity and perhaps a record for a football game and the latest news from Iraq. So, this year I would be credited to a Christmas, if a friend had invited me in the middle of nowhere Indiana (here, I will say, the usual conservative and rural America, a stereotype that has its own history, its own truth, and something wrong), along with a host of relatives who came from all States, including people from uptown from the big cities, with a pile of presents in the middle and a series of numbers drawn by lot: who goes first choose a gift, the second one could draw from the pile or to request the gift of those who had preceded him, and so on ... little by little created strategies, personal or family, to achieve their goals. The child who did not want the torch shaped like a hippo, and did his best to steal the soldiers to his aunt and I with my face or maybe even more surprised because a lady forties for reasons of state I had taken the cup of Peanuts with Snoopy doll in order to arrive with a complicated alliances around you, Thai ... I finally retrieved the cup, and I also won a beautiful tie with all the characters of Schulz, who will wear to my first lesson in Italy and a T-shirt Charlie Brown, that is yellow with stripes and zig-zag.
course, a big family that meets (and then stay to talk to late at night, after midnight Mass, though not all attended), is made up of people who do not you see all year, that in America today has the same cohesion in some cases pieces of Lego, which is made up of families acquired, divorce, ... problems, and then from year to year is a bit 'reworked in order. With the problems of those, usually the functional part of the family must handle, the guy who should not see Dick, Sempron to be invited because he is an ex-husband ... and the fact that new groups appear suddenly family, including relatives of animals and unexpected. A little 'as the Christmas About a Boy, for those who remember the movie with Hugh Grant. In any case, it starts talking, you see something that you feel being the one in Chicago and the other in Boston ... and eventually people end up happy and contented, more constructive. It's not the luck of all families, but in the hearts of many American reality there is someone who acts as glue and gradually brings people to talk at times to resent. No, Christmas has come, in most of the States, I believe, and do not be pessimistic as Krank.
This is Christmas in the States, a Christmas thanks to God and in the absence of religious representations (the American ones are rare, but delicious, the rest are floats between the bland and bad taste), a home for the time flows underground and that makes no noise, proclaiming the end of time or commemorating his funeral feast of strange for a birth, no?
I remain impressed with the tired smile of his grandmother, the only one left of his generation, who watched all those people that I went to Mass the following Sunday and suddenly passed away, bringing back the whole family from all parts of States, because here we take a plane and you go, just like in the movies. Today, after Mass, I prayed for this peaceful and quiet lady and I just bureaucratic reasons for the failure to attend the funeral.
One negative image has stayed with me that night, and that of a baby son, located at the intersection of two marriages break up. It was the only one trying frantically as many gifts and at the same time visibly in having the most dissatisfied. This is not rhetoric, but that child was screaming in his silence to give him your Christmas, his miracle. His great-grandmother, one day, maybe it will satisfy, I doubt that the return to the Mall Christmas lost, although he has collected more than gifts of all: some things, unfortunately, does not work that way.
Happy New Year from the States and at the same time, Merry Christmas.
Good Night and Good Luck
Marco
The images are of the order Norman Rockwell, respectively Discovery, and Christmas Rush, and of course Charles M. Schulz
0 comments:
Post a Comment