New Old Traditions: Finding Comfort in Holiday Perspective

Santa on His Way to Rovaniemi (image source)

The other day I was chatting on Messenger with my friend, D.M. Anderson, a wonderful artist and creative person, and she mentioned something about how a trip she had taken last year to Europe for the holidays gave her such a new perspective on holiday celebrations. I immediately said “Will you write this as a guest blog for my website?” and she agreed. Please enjoy this lovely post by D.M. Anderson!

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The holidays feel different. Certainly for all the strangeness of this trying year, but that's not what I mean. In a deep down, comforting, wholesome way, things feel different.

There are a thousand quotes out there about the ways in which travel changes you; how perspective can re-form your whole world. It seems a terrible cliché to just be another voice in that endless litany, but it's true. And it's true in ways you don't always anticipate.

I spent part of last December in Finland and England - the bulk of the bustling US holiday season - returning on Christmas Eve. My husband and I traveled to Helsinki, then to the Christmas Village of Rovaniemi on the edge of the Arctic Circle, then flew to London.

I grew up in the American Midwest. Christmas has always been the panicked crush of competitive consumerism; Tchaikovsky's Russian Dance from the Nutcracker the manic theme song of everyone's wildly spinning efforts to craft The Perfect Christmas. Everything is colored through the rosy glow of nostalgia, and we tend to lose sight, amidst the deluge of shiny, perfect holiday mass marketing, that reality isn't like that - and it doesn't have to be.

As a child, my family had wonderful happy holidays. Bright colored lights and red silvered baubles; Rankin Bass christmas specials, piles of gifts and Bing Crosby on the radio. My parents always talked of childhood 1950s holidays with tinsel and gatherings of family that were happy and close. But time, culture, and economic circumstances all change, and as I've gotten older, the pursuit of that idealized Norman Rockwell Christmas invented by the marketing teams of the postwar American boom has seemed less and less attainable; as if the only traditions we have are lost to time and dreams, and we are left rootless and disconnected; forever grasping for an image we can barely hope to recreate.

Through this tinsel-blinded, harried lens, I arrived in Helsinki halfway through December. Being halfway around the world from home, in a country whose language you do not speak, is its own sort of culture shock, but what I found as we traveled was actually a sort of culture-comfort. Finland is so *quiet*. The muffled sound of a snow-covered landscape, the sub-arctic dim, and a sense of simplicity that I have never seen at home. There were no bright flashing lights, or garish decorations, but it still felt so festive. Simple strands of white lights shone on fir trees in stands on the sidewalk, or inside homes, with no ornaments, or very few. White paper star lanterns hung in windows everywhere you looked, and Christmas Tonttu, the Finnish Christmas elves, peeked out occasionally. But the overall effect was one of simplicity. It felt welcoming rather than anxiety-inducing. Even in shops there was so much less focus on cheer being consumptive. Bags for purchases were only available by request.

The charming Christmas market in the Helsinki city center was stocked with handmade, reusable gifts: socks, handmade scrub brushes, heirloom quality artisan crafts. The small shop selling Gloggi (a hot spiced holiday drink) gave it to you in a reusable metal cup, and asked you to return the dirty cup to them (they had a convenient "used mugs" bin outside) when you had finished, and everyone did. It was completely devoid of the mountains of "this season's must have'' gifts, and tacky plastic tat that we get here in the US. It was a time to follow the shortening days and focus inward, be quiet and cozy; gather with friends over hot gloggi and buttery karelian pasties.

We took the train north, to Lapland and the Arctic Circle and the small city of Rovaniemi. You may be familiar with it - it is the official global home of Santa Claus, or Joulupukki. The arctic silence is unimaginably deafening, and the sun was present for so few hours of the day, hidden behind the thick winter cloud cover, that it was incredibly disorienting. We often enjoyed candlelit sunset lunches, and explored the city for hours in darkness; streetlights, star lanterns, candles and those strands of white lights on each evergreen our illumination. People sleep early, and live quietly, as though disturbing the silence the landscape imposed were sacrilegious. We went hunting the northern lights one day, driving out of the city through roads deep with snow, amidst looming pines so buried in snow that it was practically a moonscape. And watching the snow fall down out of the infinite darkness, it was easy to see why the landscape inspired such reverence.

Even the Santa Claus village, absolutely a European tourist spot, was marked by cozy Nordic simplicity. Santa's home was warm, and smelled comfortingly like wood smoke and cedar; almost reminiscent of a sauna, that important Finnish tradition. We were given a reusable tote bag to put our coats and winter wear in, so we wouldn't be uncomfortable while waiting to meet him. (The WARMTH everywhere in Finland was surprising. Homes and shops were kept very very warm, and it always made me sleepy. And there was a culture of taking off your coat and hanging it up at the door; of taking the time to be comfortable. As an American it was baffling that it was safe enough for people to leave their coat or even purse hanging right by the door of a restaurant or store or museum, but everyone did it. The idea that someone might take it was absolutely inconceivable.) Everything about the village felt so much like a part of an older tradition; an offshoot of Finnish culture rather than artificial magic created by a marketing team. Santa in the clothing of Lapland, traditional arctic reindeer sleighs.

By contrast, London is a bustling capital of Europe, and as hurried as any large city, even at the Holidays. Trying to poke into shops on Christmas Eve was... well, I won't try that again. Certainly consumerism is alive and well. But even there, in a huge city, there was a difference in how the Holidays felt. Wreaths and planter boxes filled with hedgerow plants - holly and ivy and box branches; things that have been symbols of winter holiday since time immemorial.

As in Finland, English Christmas seemed somewhat closer to the earth: natural decorations rather than garish inflatable santas, white lights, and plants - forced bulbs in windows, and real garlands festooned the shop fronts. Christmas markets of various types appeared in public spaces, and we drank hot mulled wine and listened to carolers sing inTrafalgar Square. We walked around Westminster Cathedral; lines of people waited outside to make a Christmas Eve visit. There has been a church on that site for over a thousand years. The weight of that history is incredible. More than once we sat in a Victorian pub, bedecked in Christmas finery as beautifully as any church, and lingered there as long as we wanted, without the check thrust at us in a rush, listening to the merry burble of gatherings around us.

When I write down what I saw and experienced on that trip, it all looks so disconnected. These are just snapshots of individual moments, not a narrative. What point am I trying to make?

I don't have a singular thesis. What I have is a series of ingredients that can be put together into a new and more beautiful whole. What I have is a salve, built from experience, which might soothe the aching wound of Covid-era Holidays.

I am comforted. Yes, this year we give up the bright, loud, busy, crowded holidays we are used to, but that isn't everything, it is just one version of celebration. What we have been gifted with is a moment to embrace the winter's quietude; to slow down, to savor the way the season changes from brightest autumn to dark, still winter. We can look away from all of the flashy trappings, and performative excess, because, holed up safely in our homes, there is less of an audience to impress. My trip showed me that there are other ways to celebrate the season that are just as wonderful. We can take a moment and pause, and figure out what is really meaningful to us; build our own traditions, and find peace.

Sending Peace and Bright Winter Wishes,

D.M. Anderson