7 Days until Christmas. 8 Days until we're bombarded with reminders of what 2017 brought. Certainly no "Peace on earth nor "Good Will toward Men. "Retrospects" of the year's events will abound, and for most Americans the pictures won't be pretty.
This week may be a time for people to slow down, look inward, meditate before the onslaught of memories of the year. This is especially true for people in the LGBTQ, Muslim, immigrant, Hispanic and African American Communities. Actually for people in any vulnerable group. And the Year of Trump has created a lot of vulnerable communities.
"Peace on Earth"? "Good Will Towards Men"? These Americans have to make their own Christmas sentiments because they cannot in all conscience join Trump's America for Christmas.
To be more direct: There is absolutely no way one could link those phrases to a Trump Christmas. From before last Christmas, when Trump almost single-handedly erased 50 years of U.S.- China relations with a diplomatic blunder worthy of Dan Quayle... Peace on earth? Through internal bickering and firings. petty tweets, lies and deceit, to an air thick with treason and corruption polluting the Presidency ... Good will towards men?
This Presidency, this political aberration is a mockery to Christmas and the true Christmas spirit.
Of course, Christmas is bright- for the gullible and believers in Trump's fantasy. For the Alt Right and White supremicists who've never such a forceful "voice" befor. For the Christian Right who envision abortion and gay rights fading from their worldview/Christofascist spectrum of self-righteousness.
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For all others, the brightness, the joy, the altruism of Christmas must be scaled back, must go inward, must be more quiet. Yes, it must recede into its own shell so that it can emerge clear and bright (and even a bit tacky/glittery) in the New Year.
My husband stand and I believe in what you might call "snuggle therapy": we hold our bodies close and together for a long time and sometimes we whisper "you and me against the world". We wanted our Christmas angel-bear tree ornaments to reflect snuggling instead of kissing, but it would have been difficult to position them on the tree without looking like they were doing something else. But notice that they are definitely focusing on each other while engulfed in the glitz of what could be a metaphor for a Trump Christmas.
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