I recently visited a potential client's home, who has now become my client, and took this picture. I work as a Real Estate Agent here in New York City and have had the pleasure of meeting a lot of great homeowners. This client I recently visited was interested in selling his property and I actually met him as he was setting his property up for Christmas. He lives in my neighborhood in Queens. I was passing by and I introduced myself and he was eager to show me the inside of his property because he thought it would be worth a good amount of money. He asked that I not post any pictures of the inside of his property itself but let's just say that it was a very well kept property.
I was amazed by the details along the ceilings and baseboards. I was taking a close look at all the details and then wanted to see out the window and since I had this blog post in mind was keeping an eye closely on every detail to see what I could use. As i drew the curtains there were large windows that looked out to a beautiful tree lined street but these were in the way of the view. It then came to me that this picture would become an important part of this project. I asked for his permission to come back later once it was dark outside take the picture. I came back and flipped them towards the inside to better see them and take a picture because it was hard to take a picture of them from the outside. After I explained why he understood the strange request. He said that he only really cared about the religious aspect.
He was really into the birth of Christ and how it came about and didn't see how it related with Santa Claus. He only put up the Santa Claus because his grandchildren liked to see the Santa head and it was the only way to keep some peace and then laughed. Pictured here are two Christmas decorations, side to side, that are Santa Claus' head and an angel. Two different things, a religious angel and a common version of what Christmas is. I am a practicing Catholic but have heard this debate go on for years. Religiously, Christmas is the birth of Christ but the other view has been this gift-giving by Santa Claus. When he said peace and I saw the angel, I recalled the title of the book by Joshua Liebman, Peace of Mind. This whole thing of gift-giving was something that maybe to Liebman wasn't really important.
As I can recall, Liebman was really into examining peace of mind because he saw no real gains in life to come from wealth, health, love, etc.. Peace of mind became his central search because only that could be a road to true happiness and success. We need peace of mind to be satisfied with what we have because if we don't, we just keep wanting bigger and better things. The owner said that Christmas wasn't about presents but about the relationships we have with one another and being together as a family, just how we see happens in the Nativity story with the Holy family.
This gift giving also, according to my family's customs, being Mexican, doesn't concur with Christmas. In Mexico, gift-giving isn't traditional. There, the people actually do recreations of the Nativity scenes called Posadas and singing Cánticos. Mexicans don't treat Christmas as a gift-giving time because this is the day Christ was born and see no relation with gifts. The gift-giving aspect doesn't come until January 6th which is Three Kings Day. This is a day where it's more sensible to give gifts because tit follows a tradition that the Three Kings established.
This also connected with the reading by Caroline Moxley-Rouse, Engaged Surrender. In this reading we see how the ambiguity in the Qu'ran was leaving many who read it to interpret in a variety of ways. Every person took a different view of it so that it would adapt to what they personally wanted. Just the same we see how Christmas has become almost a business. Stores are having sales for people to buy presents. I was raised in a Catholic Kindergarten and we were taught the meaning of Christmas but I think that society just ended up twisting that eventually to the point that Christmas is a time for children to draft their wish lists for presents which range anywhere from a new toy to the new iPhone to a car.
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