01 December 20XX
My Dear Lucilius:
And just like that, December has arrived. Or at least has arrived chronologically, if not quite in my heart.
I find myself torn over this. December holds a great deal of religious importance to me as well as personal nostalgia, yet both aspects have been downplayed in the last several years to the point that I am surprised how I feel about them this year.
Like so many other families, we had bins and bins of Christmas related items. Every post Thanksgiving I would march up on the roof and festoon Christmas lights over the edges of the front of the house; every post Thanksgiving Day when the tree arrived I would wrap it in the lights that were decided upon for that year. My wife and my daughters would follow with the ornaments on the tree and decorations throughout the house.
After my daughters moved out on their own and (even more so) when my wife passed away, all of that ended, of course. My daughters came and took the items that meant something to them; I purged myself of lights that would no longer wrap trees or garnish roofs. I kept two sets of things: the first was a set of homemade plaid ornaments strung on jute twine my wife had made when we were first married and had cats which would attack the Christmas trees; the second were her collection of crรจches (Nativity scenes).
Over the years, she had collected any number of them from all over the world. There were simple ones carved of wood and fancy ones elaborately painted. There were ceramic ones and a fired clay one and two that were children’s displays. There were very traditional ones based on the cultures they came from and what one would consider a “classic” one from when we were growing up. There was even a metal one with pieces three feet high.
These, I kept.
Part of it, of course, was simply that the religious aspects of Christmas have been so downplayed in recent years that they were just as likely to be thrown away or destroyed as they were to be used (and some of them were very fragile, of course). The other is that these were the Christmas items my wife treasured and always made sure were prominently displayed as anyone entered our home.
I have put them up every year at Christmas since I moved here, scattering them around the house on the bookshelves and hanging the plaid ornaments from shelf to shelf as well. It was never a full Christmas of course – it is not as if anyone has come here for the Holidays since I moved – but it did bring a little bit of the holiday spirit into my December.
It is odd to me, Lucilius, how the traditions get started and once they are started, how hard they are to let go. There are no stockings to be ransacked early Christmas morning; Christmas cards have in general become things of the past let alone the dwindling contact list of a widower; and the only presents that are under anything are the small snacks I buy for the rabbits and whatever I have purchased for myself.
I suppose there is a fair case to be made that this pushes me back towards the original importance of Christmas as the celebrated date of the birth of the Savior, stripped of every sense of commercialism and popular culture. If you think about it, the greatest shopping day of the year – Black Friday – did not happen this year and may likely never again happen in our lifetimes.
The Nativity Scenes, of course, help to keep me grounded in the reality of why we as Christians celebrate Christmas. Each one is an interpretation of that event, still here after the crass commercialism that had become the modern world has collapsed and blown away. The stars that shown over Bethlehem still shine over us today, even if the entire human culture and structure around it have collapsed.
The plaid stars, of course, just hang and any light that they shine is in my heart and memory.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
One of the joys of my new (to me) faith was the complete and utter rejection of commercialized Christmas. No high pressure shopping with their swarming masses. No depleted bank accounts afterward. No gritted teeth from listening to the smarmy and demented politics of our former families. The jabs, the backhanded insults, and the unhappy, angry people that participated in the sham. I haven’t had a Christmas hangover in years!
ReplyDeleteI remember my first Christmas outside The Hive. We went to the little chapel for Christmas services and I was sober as a judge. So was everyone else. The kids were rambunctious but not out of control at all. The skies outside were ice blue, and it was so cold outside that it wasn’t snow flakes on the wind... it was ice flakes. They glittered like gems on the breeze. But most of all, I remember sitting there in my chair, waiting for services to start... and feeling cleansed.
There is much that is very wrong with modern Christmas, and those that want it can have it with my compliments. Perhaps the coming storm will shake others out of their hives too. Your character has much going for him.
Glen, our Christmas has been much different since we moved - when we did not return to Old Home they were very quiet. We are able to go back now; we are there for such a short time that everything seems to move along fine.
DeleteModern Christmas has, for the most part, become commercial (I say that - I have contributed my own fair share in the past). If this goes on, Christmas this year will be very different indeed.
I see a lot of my family in this post. Since my mom passed away a couple years back, we've been struggling to figure out what to do during holidays. My brother and I both have families of our own so it isn't so hard. I for the most part am passing on my parents traditions onto my kids but my father has been struggling. He is still trying to run away from mourning/grief so it has been hard figuring out what our new traditions with him will be.
ReplyDeleteEd, to be completely honest this is drawn from my own personal experience as well. My maternal grandmother outlived my grandmother by five years. They were not huge celebrators of Christmas in the grandiose fashion of today (they married in 1932, during the Great Depression), and had those funny ornaments they made in the 40's and '50s that they hung on a very small tree. After she died, he struggled. He always had a small tree with a few ornaments on it after that.
DeleteWe would always open our stockings and then call them to come over to open presents, then went over to their house for dinner. That all changed after she died.
I've always been able to see the value of traditions to define holidays, but with our kids now out of the nest many of those traditions seem to have been set aside. I think deep down, though, I feel a strong spiritual connection to Christmas, one the world, for the most part, either ignores or doesn't understand. Consequently, it's become something deeply internal and personal. If we can carry some sort of connection like that, I think it remains a part of us.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, that is a good point. It seems (if I think about it) that we have few holiday traditions left as well. And if I kept Christmas only as a commercial holiday it would probably be the same. I have a different view of it fortunately - and yes, it does remain a part of us.
Delete