Christmas in Fannin County

Well, it’s Christmas in North Georgia. There is a festive feeling in the air. The local radio stations are playing Christmas carols. The town of Blue Ridge has had its Christmas decorations up since Thanksgiving. The Blue Ridge train (quite a tourist attraction) is decorated with Christmas lights and features Santa Claus as a conductor. The parking lot at Walmart has been busy for the last few weeks. The local churches have had their Christmas concerts. Manger scenes sit in front of many of the churches, and Christmas lights decorate many houses, even those along country lanes. You see your fair share of ugly Christmas sweaters and cars decorated with reindeer antlers and Christmas wreaths.

Christmas reveals how charitable and giving folks are around here while at the same time revealing how much poverty there is in this area. The local chapter of the Marine Corps League had its gift drive for Toys for Tots, and the response was overwhelming. The League is now busy distributing gifts out of the same building that houses the food pantry—and believe me, there are plenty of kids in Fannin County who would not have much of a Christmas if it weren’t for the efforts of the League and the amazing generosity of the more fortunate around here. As for the food pantry, it has been unusually busy for the last couple of weeks as needy folks and families come in to get food for the holidays. Churches, businesses, civic groups, schools and just plain people come by almost daily to drop off food donations to replenish the larder. Even the local bowling alley had a food drive for the pantry. Thanks to some generous contributions, needy families and individuals will receive a ham for Christmas dinner.

As I have noted before, Christmas is celebrated around here more traditionally and less secularly than what I was used to in Pinellas County. People wish other “Merry Christmas” more freely. The local radio stations do not hesitate to play religious Christmas carols, and local businesses do not mind putting a reference to Jesus’s birth in their advertisements for fear of offending someone. That’s only true for the local businesses. The Christmas displays and ads for the big grocery stores and national chain stores convey the same bland “happy holiday” message that we have become used to in this politically correct, God forbid we should offend anyone, do you need a safe zone? world.

I wish someone would explain to me how we got to be this way. We talk about diversity so much in this country but I question whether we truly practice it. It doesn’t seem very diverse to me to suppress references to Christmas, Kwanza, Ramadan, Hanukah and other seasonal celebrations by religious and ethnic groups for fear of offending other groups. It seems to me that makes us less diverse and more vanilla.

My first thought was that the reason Christmas is celebrated more traditionally here is because this is the Bible Belt, and we have more Christians in Fannin County. As it tunes out, that’s not true. According to 2010 census data, 63.1 percent of the folks in Fannin County self-identify as Christians and 36.9 percent are in the category “None” which includes atheists, agnostics, and “nothing in particular.” (Interestingly, there are only 6 people in Fannin County out of a population of 23,753 who said they belonged to some religion other than Christian.) Nationally, 70.6 percent of people identify themselves as Christian, 5.9 percent as belonging to a non-Christian faith, and 22.8 percent fall in the None category according to the Pew Research Center. 

That means we have less self-identified Christians and more self-identified non-Christians in Fannin County than the national average. And yet religion is more open and obvious here, and there is a greater religious undertone to the Christmas season than I experienced in Florida. Perhaps local Christians are more emboldened or maybe those in the None category more tolerant.

Whatever the reason, I find that I enjoy the Christmas experience here more than I did in Florida. It may have something to do with the fact that it’s cold outside and there always is a possibility of snow around this time of year. Having grown up in the north and spent five years living in Germany, I associate Christmas with cold and snow and chestnuts roasting over an open fire. But more than that, it also has to do with the fact that it feels more like the traditional Christmases of my youth when I was less jaded and cynical.

With that observation I will close the way I have done in my past Christmas posts:

“Christmas in Dixie” by Alabama

By now in New York City, there's snow on the ground
And out in California, the sunshine's falling down.
And, maybe down in Memphis, Graceland's all in lights
And in Atlanta, Georgia, there's peace on earth tonight.

Christmas in Dixie, it's snowin' in the pines.

Merry Christmas from Dixie, to everyone tonight.

It's windy in Chicago, the kids are out of school.
There's magic in Motown, the city's on the move.
In Jackson, Mississippi, to Charlotte, Caroline
And all across the nation, it's the peaceful Christmas time.

Christmas in Dixie, it's snowin' in the pines
Merry Christmas from Dixie, to everyone tonight.

And from Fort Payne, Alabama
God bless y'all, we love ya.
Happy New Year, good night,
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas tonight.

To which I would add:

And from Mineral Bluff, Georgia
God bless y'all, we love ya.
Happy New Year, good night,
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas tonight.