I am seeing
Christmas trees all around me – firs and pines, decorated, lit. There is an
ungroundedness, a tension, an uneasiness that rises to the surface as I notice
the glimmer and extravaganza of this holiday season. It’s a conflict really:
some long-buried feeling of holiday romance and delight bubbles up and abrades
the now-present landscape of my values and practices that have completely abandoned
all those holiday traditions.
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| Probably taken by our mom, circa 1968. |
My entire
childhood was measured and counted by holidays…the Big Day itself; the build-up
of anticipation for the special occasion; the let down afterward; and the long,
barren stretches of ordinary daily life in between the festive moments. Our
home was amply decorated for each one of these times – Halloween skeletons and
pumpkins, birthday streamers, Thanksgiving turkeys and cornucopias, Easter
baskets, Valentines Day hearts and candy, Fourth of July flags and pinwheels.
And, of course, the really big one:
Christmas, replete with -
a glistening
tree of decorations and lights always set in front of
the large picture window
in the living room,
brightly-colored,
foil mobiles that hung from the three
doorways in the front entryway,
a nativity scene
on the living room table,
a light-up old
fashioned village with cotton snow on the
mantel,
stockings hung
above the fireplace,
snowmen, santas,
reindeer, bells, candy, candles,
the Christmas
table centerpiece of little circling tin angels who
were animated by candles,
and a paper
Santa Claus – nearly life size – who hung on the outside of our front door.
I cherished the winter
holidays and felt the romance of the traditions my family put together and
followed year after year during my childhood. My little brother with
extraordinary memorization skills would recite by heart The Night Before Christmas each Christmas eve just before we went
to bed. We would line up in a vertical row, one child per step, on the stairs early
on Christmas morning, calling to my mother: “Merr-y Christ- - -mas!” with
increasing volume until she signaled we could come into the family room to open
stockings. There were the usual holiday parties with friends, singing, and an
overabundance of delicious foods. But on Christmas day it was just our family
and mountains of gifts…
Then I left home
and took with me a rebellion for all of the holiday traditions. For the thirty
years since shutting the door to my childhood home for the last time, I have
not spent more than two Christmases in a row at the same location, with the
same people, or engaging in the same activity. I have had a few Christmases
totally by myself.
I’m not exactly
a Grinch, but I have come to know so well that ache that lingered each year at
holiday time: it was both a grief for the loss of those traditions and a relief
that I do not have to abide by them. It was both a fierce clinging to my own
values of non-consumption and an irrepressible longing to be able to want to engage in the traditions. It was both a
deeply-felt, beautiful spiritual life that is not fully in accord with the
Christmas story and an honoring of the way in which families come together at
Christmas, if not at any other time of the year. It was both a desire to see
the lights and to hear the festive carols, and a compelling desire to hunker
quietly at home with loved ones. It was both the desire to give freely, to make
special handmade gifts, and the repugnance of all that mandatory giving limited
to a single day or season each year. It was both the desire for things new and
shiny and comfortable, and the hermit’s passion to hike a mountain trail in the
grubby cold of winter. The ache was in the irreconcilability of these seemingly
conflicting desires.
I have left rebellion against the holidays in the
past, as much as I’ve left the traditions of my childhood. I no longer need to
flee, nor do I need to show up in some predetermined manner.
It is this year for the first time, really, that I am able to live reasonably comfortably with
these inner inconsistencies. Sure, I am feeling the slight edge of the season.
I am taking extra time to myself when the holiday grumpies want to push me into
unkind words. I am making small moments to reach out to others and making slightly
larger openings to reflect in solitude. But I no longer need to berate myself
when I find the Allelujah Chorus flowing out my mouth in the shower (the
morning after we heard Messiah), or when we decide to forego the holiday
invitations streaming our way.
Spaciousness,
for me, is about holding the romance of and
the distaste for the traditions. It is about allowing others and allowing
myself. It is about giggling at the holiday cartoon a friend just sent and
feeling free to leave the store when Frosty the Snowman is playing for the
third time in a row. Spaciousness is about candlelight and warmth; deep
connection with family and loved ones; the freedom to give all year 'round but
not feel I have to give just because it's the holiday season; to smile with affection at the
holiday clad, poised, studio photos in my mailbox while embracing my own
bare-hands-on-the-earth feisty love of all things wild and natural.
I can have the
romance of my earthy now, the feeling of grief about holiday traditions now
long gone, and just be with all of it today. Now that I am realizing this year
that I’m a bit on edge, I am feeling less so than during prior holiday seasons.
The more I accept this, the more peaceful I become.
All blog images created and/or photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.