I went to bed early last night because sometimes the universe works out where you are simultaneously exhausted and home and no one’s needs are especially pressing. And so when I woke up somewhat early this morning, it was still completely quiet, except for the thudding predator prey white noise of the cats as they did their cat thing. I slid open our frosted bedroom window to see how much snow had fallen overnight, and breathed in the cold air. It smelled cold. And new. And freshly wintery. Checked phone. -2. Definitely wintery.
I came downstairs and made tea and I stood at the patio door for a little while, the tree’s Christmas lights reflecting off the glass, and I watched the snow filter down. I miraculously found both tape and scissors (Christmas miracle!) and wrapped a few presents, slipped a few mementos into stockings. And I reflected that this was an ideal sort of holiday season morning. Snow, quiet, wrapping presents in the quiet glow of the tree.
But I noted it in a sort of detached, third-person way. An if-I-wrote-tv-movies-or-if-I-wrote-for-Hallmark-or-Folgers commercials sort of way. I usually enjoy Christmas. I’m not that person who counts down from July, but once Thanksgiving is over, usually still that afternoon, I’m all in. We play Christmas music almost exclusively throughout the month, and we decorate with the traditions that have become our family’s, as well as some heirlooms that have been passed down. I make a big deal out of making hors d’oeuvres and hot cider while we decorate the tree.
This year, I did none of that. When my husband suggested decorating, I teared up, got angry, and said that they could do what they wanted. This was unreasonable, obviously. And no matter how I’m feeling, obviously the good parenting instinct should kick in and push me to do what I need to do to make the holiday special and joyous for the children, for the family.
“That’s okay, mama,” my youngest said, rubbing my arm as I stood, rigidly, irrationally heartbroken at the idea of Christmas. “You don’t have to help. We can do it.”
It’s always sweet when we adults are feeling sick or tired, and our children bring us a stuffed animal and pull a blanket over us. “You’ll be such a good mother,” I say. And yet, when our children are truly and sincerely parenting us in ways beyond stuffed animals, it’s a little distressing. But I stood firm. I wouldn’t – couldn’t – embrace a feeling I wasn’t feeling, simply because the calendar had ticked its way through the year.
And so, Christmas cards were ordered, gifts were purchased. Without me, the mantle was decorated and stockings were hung. Finally, giving up on me, my husband shrugged and put up the tree. I made a couple forays into holiday spirit, but they felt uncomfortable. An ill-fitting jacket found at the back of a closet. I peeled out of it and put it back. I Googled “Where Are You Christmas,” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” the only Christmas songs I felt any connection with.
I put Love Actually on the other day, thinking it would be a good way to channel some holiday cheer. Heads up, parents, if you haven’t seen it in a while and only remember heart-warming highlights. Delightful, yes. Child-friendly, no. It is totally rated R for a reason. I did not even think to check until the about the time I ordered my youngest out of the room, about 8 minutes in. Holiday does not automatically equal PG and is not all about lobsters at the Christmas crèche. Noted for next time. For this year, it was just another aborted Christmas mission.
This has been a hard Christmas season. I know it’s been true for not just me. I have talked to many friends who feel the same way. This year has been emotionally exhausting for any number of reasons. I feel buffeted by wave after wave of news and information. I’ve considered the sage advice of tuning out for a while, and yet that seems somehow frightening as well. I want to be informed – the world doesn’t stop just because we tune out and I firmly believe that the world needs a compassionate, informed public – but the cost of being informed is knowing, seeing. And so, we’re exhausted. Protests, natural disasters, mass shootings, genocide, fallen police officers and the warmest year on record (again).
Christmas can be wonderful. It’s traditions and joy, goodwill and family. But it’s also exhausting. Life doesn’t stop because it’s the holiday season, and in some ways the world spins faster. Holiday parties, year-end wrap-ups, concerts and dance recitals. Gifts to buy. Finding time to make traditions happen. Great-grandma’s cookies, remembering it’s the one time of year we need to buy shortening, and holiday movies (of appropriate scope). If we start out emotionally drained, it’s hard to find the additional reservoirs to tap for that ornament decorating and cookie exchange party that’s taking place on a Wednesday night.
This year, in acknowledgment of the holidays, the girls and I looked through the World Ark/Heifer International gift catalog and the girls choose to send Hope Baskets – chickens and rabbits (a little known and quickly multiplying symbols of Christmas). It’s a gifting custom started with my grandmother, continued by my parents – four generations of holiday spirit. That seems legitimately traditional. And then, feeling sick about the continued news coming out of Aleppo, we donated to Doctors Without Borders, so that they can continue to do everything they can to help those people who are in such unimaginable distress, and who, coincidentally, live in the same region of the world as one little displaced boy child who was born in a manger 2000 years ago. It’s a drop in an ocean, but still a drop.
I think I have sometimes gotten too caught up in the trappings of a perfect Christmas, which makes it harder to be at peace with the humbuggery I’m feeling this year. I generally subscribe to the holly jolly Christmas, the best time of the year, maybe a little fearful that if it wasn’t, I wasn’t doing my job, wasn’t paying enough homage to my own childhood, wasn’t giving my children a template that they would want to take with them. In the name of tradition, I was creating snapshots of orchestrated holiday accomplishment. And maybe in a lot of ways, that’s actually what tradition boils down to… what snapshots we want to take with us as we go into the new year, as our children become adults, the days and moments we want to make sure we remember.
This year, the stockings are hung. The tree is trimmed, even if I didn’t have much to do with it. In a secret, thawing place in my heart, it’s a soothing reminder that life is multi-faceted, as are we. I think it’s okay if this year my holidays aren’t about matching pajamas and Christmas mugs of cocoa next to a Yule log. Maybe I’ll get back there next year. Maybe sometimes it’s okay if the holidays are simply a cyclical reminder that the world has been around for a very long time, and will likely keep spinning for a good while longer, even if not everything looks the same from year to year.
One of the traditions of my childhood was reading aloud in the evenings as a family, including the classic C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe series. In Narnia, when the Pevensie children first arrive, it is always Winter, but never Christmas. I think this year, while not glowing with holiday spirit, I’m content with the idea that in the midst of Winter, Christmas is still due to arrive on schedule, proof that we’ve made it around the sun one more time and get another chance to do it all again, and maybe – hopefully – better, next year.
It’s a reminder that in the coldest, darkest part of the year, the sun is already fighting for precedence.