I was talking to a friend the other day when they asked me what I was doing for Christmas. As I answered, I realized that I had used the same exact response every time I was asked that question lately and wondered to myself, “Why isn’t Christmas my season”?
I cannot lie. My favorite holiday is Halloween. Candy and dressing up in whatever costume you desire; what is there not to love. My second is Thanksgiving; the traditional turkey dinner is my favorite meal, especially if I am cooking it! But Christmas. Christmas seems to be a bit heavy for me, not always, but when I got older, maybe starting in my 30s, it became less joy and peace and more frazzle and conflict and then grew to a slow and deliberate withdrawal from the fray; a quiet retreat.
But I really wanted to get deep into why I felt so tortured during the “holiday” season and always wished by Thanksgiving that the rest of the year would just be over immediately and we would be in the new year, starting again. So I sat and thought about it. Thought about when I didn’t feel this way, when the last time I actually looked forward to or was joyful about Christmas. I had to really dig deep and go back to when I actually felt Christmas, felt a magic and hopeful time that lived it’s very meaning, or at least what it used to.
I remember when I was young, the holidays were for family and friends, no one worked, the stores were all closed and people stayed at home. It was more of a time to be concerned for everyone, to be kinder, extend a helping hand and feel blessed for whatever you had. We would go to mid-night mass and it was quite an effort to stay awake and then have to go out in the cold. I remember quiet. The night was quiet, still, there was no sound. Gone were all of the familiar noises that always filled the air. We stumbled in and out of the car and into the church, the one I knew on Sunday mornings, but not the one I knew at all this night. It had transformed somehow and It was dark except for soft flickering lights and great shadows arching up the walls. It was hushed with echoing footsteps behind me and the muffled sounds of coats being shed. I heard the whispers as people were finding their seats. Quiet. Shhhhhhhh. You were not allowed to talk in church.
At some point, the organ would pierce the darkness and what sounded like angels would begin to sing from the air above me and when they sang ‘O, Holy Night’ I would cry, so moved, still do. By the time I was led out of the church, I had become part of the magic of that night; the quiet of things yet to come and the hope that was given to everyone, no matter what. Of course when we all gathered in the morning to share in Christmas, we really didn’t have much but we were all together and that seemed to matter until many years later when we were not.
I don’t remember when the rules changed, or who changed them. At some point I stopped going to church, “Blue Laws” disappeared and stores were now open on Christmas day part of the morning. As the years passed, I lost my brother, the family was split apart and now shopping on Christmas eve became a tradition for some. Then came Christmas commercials before Thanksgiving, Black Friday, stores opened on holidays earlier and earlier and people bragging how they hit the sales Thanksgiving night, before the turkey got cold and were back out at 4AM the following morning. Whenever I watch television now, (which isn’t often), I am bombarded with commercials for holiday gifts, sales, deals, before I finish my first bag of Halloween candy. And as the Christmas season has slowly encroached on my favorite holiday, I once again, feel the loss of my peace and joy and have slowly retreated back into the quiet hush of my own night, not wanting to be swept up in what has become the tsunami of commercialism around what once was a quiet night of hope and magic and kindness and everything possible. And now I have come to know why Christmas is no longer my season. However, I still carry the hope and magic within me as I wait in the shadows, to exhale, and re-emerge after the clock strikes midnight so that I can start a new year again. Quietly.
