The Christmas Interrogation
Why my holiday plans have become everyone’s business
It starts innocently enough. You’re at the supermarket, reaching for almond milk, and the cashier notices your basket lacks festive items.
“So, are you celebrating Christmas?”
It’s December seventh. We have eighteen days until Christmas. Yet somehow, this question has already been asked of me nine times this week. Nine separate interrogations about my December twenty-fifth plans.
I used to say, “No, I’m Hindu.” But that just opens a whole new investigation.
“Oh, so you celebrate Diwali then?”
“Actually, no.”
Now their face does this thing. This specific combination of confusion and concern, like I’ve just told them I don’t believe in gravity.
“You don’t celebrate Diwali? But isn’t that your Christmas?”
Why does everyone need my holiday to have a Christmas equivalent? Can’t a holiday just be a holiday? Does everything need a Christian analog for validation?
But here’s where it gets really uncomfortable. Because after I explain I don’t celebrate Diwali either, they start running through their mental database of holidays like they’re trying to crack a safe.
“New Year’s?”
“No.”
“Your birthday?”
“Especially not my birthday.”
This is when the conversation takes a dark turn. The birthday revelation seems to break something in people’s brains. It’s like I’ve violated some fundamental human protocol.
“You don’t celebrate your birthday? Not even a small cake?”
Not even a small cake. Not a large cake. No cake of any circumference or height.
Last week, my colleague Pamela spent eleven minutes trying to understand this. Eleven minutes. I timed it.
“But everyone celebrates their birthday. It’s the one day that’s completely yours.”
Exactly my point. Why do I need one specific day to be mine when I could have three hundred sixty-five days be mine?
The math doesn’t add up for them. They’re doing the calculation in their heads. If I don’t celebrate anything, what do I do with all that celebration energy? Where does it go?
“So you just work on your birthday?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I walk. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I eat lunch.”
“But that’s just a regular day.”
“That’s the whole point.”
Germans are particularly confused by this. They’ve engineered precision into everything, including celebration schedules. Christmas markets open on a specific date. Advent calendars count down with Germanic efficiency. There are rules.
And here I am, the chaos agent, refusing to participate in any of it.
My neighbor Klaus asked me yesterday what I’m doing for Christmas. When I said nothing special, he looked genuinely worried.
“But you must do something. It’s Christmas.”
“I’ll probably work on my newsletter.”
“On Christmas Day?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s Christmas!”
We’re going in circles now. The circular logic of celebration. You must celebrate Christmas because it’s Christmas. You must celebrate your birthday because it’s your birthday.
But here’s what nobody wants to hear. When you celebrate one day, you’re implicitly saying the other three hundred sixty-four days are less special. You’re creating a hierarchy of days.
I prefer democracy. Every day gets equal treatment.
My birthday? Just another rotation of Earth around the Sun. Nothing personal, Earth, but you do this every single day for everyone.
Christmas? Lovely tradition. But why should December twenty-fifth get all the love when December seventh is sitting right here, equally valid?
People think I’m missing out. But I’m the one who gets excited about Tuesday breakfast. I’m the one who finds joy in a random Wednesday afternoon walk. I don’t need permission from a calendar to feel grateful.
The irony is, by not celebrating anything, I’m celebrating everything. But try explaining that to Klaus while he’s putting up his outdoor Christmas lights with German precision.
“You’re very strange,” Pamela told me yesterday.
“Maybe,” I said. “But at least I’m consistently strange every day of the year.”
She laughed. Then immediately felt guilty for laughing, probably because it wasn’t officially Christmas yet.
That’s the thing about celebration protocols. Once you step outside them, you can see how arbitrary they all are. December twenty-fifth is special because we all agreed it is. Your birthday matters because society created that rule.
But what if we just... didn’t?
What if every morning you woke up and thought, “Another day in this bizarre theme park called life. How wonderful.”
No waiting for holidays. No saving your best energy for special occasions. Just consistent, daily appreciation for the absurdity of existence.
Though I should warn you, this approach will make you very unpopular at German Christmas markets.
Especially when they ask what you’re doing for Christmas and you say, “The same thing I do every day. Living.”
Your writing will always be some of my favorite, Srini