A few years ago now I saw the movie Fred Claus. Toward the end of the movie, as Fred is saving Christmas flying around the world at break neck speeds, I had to wonder, what good is a sleigh in Sydney Australia? The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed to me, not just the sleigh in the southern hemisphere, but the lack of cold Christmas in the majority of the world. Yes, a good bit of the northern hemisphere gets much cooler in winter but a good deal of the northern hemisphere doesn’t get all that much cooler, and none of the southern hemisphere gets cooler.
I'm dreaming of a green Christmas?
These thoughts were recently brought back to me as I sat on a shaded deck on Christmas morning in my shorts a tee-shirt and jandels (flip flops) just outside of Auckland. Having been raised in Colorado, I’ve seen quite a few cold Christmases, and even a few white Christmases. I was a little sad I missed one this year, but my sadness was dissipated with the possibility to go to the beach on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas).
While Christmas is on the 25 December, theologians will tell you, we don’t really know when Jesus was actually born, really 25 December was chosen because it put it in direct competition with the solstice holidays of pagan religions when Christianity was becoming main stream. Since no one really knows when the date was, it stuck. Because it stuck, the northern European nations that later became Christian happened to celebrate Christmas during the coldest time of year, and thus were born traditions such as Santa with is sleigh and reindeer, Christmas trees, and so many Christmas songs.
Unfortunately, these don’t always translate so well for those who are south of 30 degrees on the globe. It seems to me there are two acceptable solutions to this problem. First is to change the date of Christmas. This isn’t the perfect solution, the people of Ecuador wouldn’t be helped by it and it isn’t likely Christians in Egypt will be seeing a white Christmas anytime soon, but it would help those in the southern part of the Southern hemisphere… Not many grant you, the north island of New Zealand doesn’t see much snow, and New Zealand gets much cooler that most of Australia, but if we were to change it to be 25 July, they’d at least be celebrating it in the proper time of year. Really we don’t know when Jesus was born anyway do we?
The other possibility, and it may be even more irrational and silly, but perfectly acceptable to me, is those south of 30 degrees on the globe (this would include Bethlehem ironically enough) could just change their traditions. Forget about the evergreen Christmas trees. You want to keep Santa? That is fine; he can wear his togs (swim shorts) and jandels, perhaps he could come by jet skis or if you must be traditional a wagon pulled by kangaroos. He’d be far more comfortable anyway, trust me, that winter coat would be very uncomfortable down here.
While I felt these solutions seemed perfectly rational, when I floated them to the people around me they felt on deaf ears. Apparently I’m being pedantic, there is nothing wrong with going to the beach on the day after Christmas (lord knows everyone and their dog does it here) and it is a magic sleigh anyway, why would it need snow. Of course I’ll still push my ideas, and perhaps they will someday be heard. Until then, Santa and I are going to the beach.
