Christmas Wrapping

In the first installment in my series on non-tradditional Christmas songs, I've decided to start with a song from the New Wave heyday: "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses. For those of you unfamiliar with the song, the gist is that the singer is resolved to spend Christmas by herself recounting how busy the year has been and how all the things going on in the year have prevented her from getting together with a guy she met earlier the previous year. She fixes a Christmas dinner for one but realizes she forgot the cranberries so she goes to the all-night grocery and ends up seeing the guy who is also spending Christmas by himself. For those of you who want the full song lyrics, they can be found at this website: http://www.hardcafe.co.uk/waitresses/xmas_wrapping.htm.
This song is definitely different from ones you hear on the radio since it tells a story of someone who is not having the stereotypical Christmas with all the gatherings and celebrations and also it ends with her celebrating her Christmas in an unexpected way. Most traditional Christmas songs portray a certain way the season should be celebrated and anything that deviates from that norm is totally unacceptable. My mom has recounted one year we spent with our family in NC and now lives in family history as "the Infamous Flu Christmas" since everyone was sick. Although I don't wish to get sick around the holidays (or any other time for that matter), we made the best of it we could and now have a bit of family memories to share.
Many cherished songs are cherished because they've been around for a very long time and, therefore, portray a very different life. However, in the current day and age, we are often having to "think outside the box" in many aspects of our lives. The tough economic times have limited the amount of gift-giving a person can do, decisions to go elsewhere for the holidays are tempered by rising costs of gas and airline travel, and doing our holiday shopping must be timed just right for fear of crowds looking for that one gift everyone wants as a zombie wants brains. Also, as someone who came from MI, whoever sung about a "white christmas" probably didn't have to drive in a lake-effect snow storm.
Does this mean Christmas is somehow an archaic anniversary we should just ignore and go about our lives? Of course not, but change is not always a bad thing. In my family, as we all age we are finding the need to get someone that special gift gradually diminishes. Both my Mom and my Aunt's prime choice of gifts are dishcloths which continue to be a hot commodity year round when trying to dry your dinner plates. Many people I know have done away with adult gift-giving and reserve it for their kids. Although I have many fond memories of Christmases of my youth, I am kind of glad that I'm of the age where my world doesn't crumble around me because I did not get the big Voltron toy I spent many a day at Meijer salivating over.
As we are a society that (I'd like to think at least) evolves over time, I would hope we would not view doing things differently as an automatic minus to our holiday season. I think at this point I should mention that Jesus (who many people feel is the 'Reason for the Season') was not the traditional leader people had come to expect, but his life and works showed people there is another way to live and, although different, I doubt any Christian would say they are worse off for it.