For some strange reason, when that time of the season comes and we play Handel's Messiah here, I always feel a little "alien"! I end up thinking about the very contrasting Christmases of my childhood, growing up, etc! Sometimes I wish I TOO had the Messiah embedded in my Christmas memories! But I grew up in a communist country - "the Messiah" was not really on the menu! In fact Christmas itself didn't officially exist as far as the party was concerned. (people of course continued to celebrate it - but mostly in their homes, privately)
There were no bright shiny street lights reminding people of Christmas; and most definitely no public celebrations with "the Messiah" or anything similar! And if the regime didn't manage to extirpate Christmas, at least they tried to remove any religious associations. So having “the Messiah” played, especially around Christmas time, would have seemed worse than Christmas itself from the party point of view.
The shops wouldn't display any Christmas messages - and to diminish the importance of Christmas even further, New Year's Eve was promoted as the main celebration of the winter holidays instead of Christmas. December 31, January 1 and some of January 2 were generally the days off work, not Christmas - and were also the only days when the one and only state TV channel would broadcast for longer than the usual 2 hours a day in the evening - and it wouldn't be all party propaganda! (actually I think at weekends we would also get some afternoon broadcasts, 2 hours or so - I definitely remember that we used to get 5 minutes of cartoons on Saturday & 5 minutes on Sunday - but it wasn't always clear at exactly what time of the afternoon that would be. So if we were playing outside when the cartoons started, by the time my mom would shout for us and by the time we would hear that and make it home inside, the 5 minutes of cartoons would be finished! So ... wait for another week! I remember for example watching stuff like "the Aristocats", that way - in weekly episodes of 2 x 5 minutes! :) But I digress!)
So "the Messiah" was definitely not a tradition for Christmas! In fact any performances or exhibitions of any art works with religious themes weren't encouraged in general - and if they had to happen, the interest had to be carefully focused exclusively on their aesthetic qualities and not at all on any religious symbolism. The artists biographies were carefully altered so as to show they never had any real interest in the church or the religion (and if possible that on the contrary they hadn't) and the reasons for creating something somehow "religious" would have been entirely financial, social, etc. Definitely not devotion! A great artist couldn't have sincerely believed in any of that backward superstition, could they? OK, maybe the regime would forgive someone like Handel, as the poor guy lived so long ago and must have been influenced by all the cretins that surrounded him! But just in case, no "Messiah" at Christmas, who knows, it may give some dangerous ideas to the masses!
Now I'm not trying to defend religion! I am not religious. I find for example Franco's enforced Catholicism and nationalism equally as disturbing and disgusting as the communists enforced denial. But sometimes I envy those who had the CHOICE of a concert with something like "the Messiah" at Christmas!
However, I shouldn't blame only the communists! The Orthodox Church considers instrumental music "incompatible with the pure, solemn, spiritual character of the religion of Christ." (almost as narrow minded as the communists) So while the "kapellmeisters" of the western churches were encouraged to write great music for services and other church events and given a relative freedom to do it, the Orthodox Church with its ultra-conservative ways sterilized musicians ("music shouldn't be too important or it may distract attention from God" mentality).
Thus even despite the foreign language, I wouldn't have instantly recognized "the Messiah" as "sacred" or "religious" music anyway, especially as a child, as it sounds very different from the Byzantine chant type music which was for me "church music".
But I'm not complaining, like most I remember all those Christmases of the past as "magical"! In fact I wouldn't change my childhood Christmases for anything! Not even the one from 89 with the Revolution and the Christmas Day execution that we were all waiting for so many hours to watch ... That early January at school, my classmates were not showing off their Christmas presents - they were exchanging the bullets they collected instead. I was envious because I didn't have any!
Maybe I didn't get to hear Handel's "Messiah", I didn't see bright Christmas street lights, not even on TV, I didn't see Christmas trees in shops in October - in fact I almost didn't feel it was Christmas until the day before when we would put up our Christmas tree which once or twice we cut ourselves from the forest. But I would hear and sing Christmas Carols instead which felt maybe even more special to many of us because we couldn't hear them on the radio or the TV or sung in schools (until after the Revolution), as they were "religious". (and I mean ancient Romanian carols, I don't mean "White Christmas"! - in fact I wasn't familiar with most American or other "foreign" Christmas carols until some time after the Revolution). We would have groups of children come and sing carols from house to house, go with the "star" (a traditional custom), etc. And of course Santa would bring us presents! (despite the fact that the communists tried to replace him with a "communist” version!)
Then would be all the other many customs and traditions related to Christmas and the New Year which I can't even start to translate or describe! And of course we would spend literally the whole day everyday playing not in front of the computer, not even inside, sometimes far from home, in the forest, in the snow, fighting, on crazy slopes skiing and sledging, etc. in large groups for hours and hours; and then come home dirty, wet, frozen, exhausted... I am sorry my son can no longer experience that!
Still, when we play the Messiah at Christmas each year it somehow reminds me the different world I come from.
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