Have A Very Un-Weasley Christmas!

[Eileen Rebstock]

Given as is only three days to Christmas, may I take the moment to gripe
about Christmas in the Potterverse? Or to be fair, Christmas according
to the Weasleys. The whole thing seems to me a terrible flaw in JKR's
presentation of the Weasley's as the overbearing tightly-knit large
family. The last two Christmases have somewhat corrected that problem,
but the ones before were the most miserable affairs ever, and not
terribly consistent with either the purported vices or virtues of the
Weasley family. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley seem not at all interested in
seeing their children for more than two months in a year, and the
children seem curiously uninterested in seeing their parents any longer
as well. 

Sure, it's a boarding school story and sure historically people have put
up with and liked boarding school, but without Christmas holidays? The
Christmas in "Philosopher's Stone", which seemed to affection-starved
Harry so wonderful, reminds me of nothing so much as young Ebenezer
Scrooge's Christmases abandoned at school by a father who hated him. 

The oddest touch to this picture is that the Weasley attitude towards
Christmas can't be blamed - as so many other oddities can be - on the
venerable maxim, "Wizards are nutters." It's a rare few who don't
rejoice to be with family at Christmas, outside of the decidedly
attractive Yule Ball year. 

Brutus Scrimgeour really couldn't have imagined how doubly unnatural
forcing Percy over for Christmas was. It wasn't like the Weasley family
cared to get together much in Percy's experience. 

Eileen, finally delurking