How to light the room

At this time of year, when the darkness cuts the day in half, I wonder: what are we yearning for, what holds itself up in our hearts only to land in our stomachs after Christmas dinner like a piece of poorly digested meat? When I hear the music, sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown: tricked into kicking the football, only to have it taken away at the last moment.

I still say ‘Christmas’. It’s the tradition I was raised in. I still expect to see a child in a manger, I look for the decorated tree. I love the wrapped gifts, the fattening shortbread cookies, the turkey coupons, the worn sweaters in red and green. I used to love holiday dress-up parties and then I became a mother. Now I look forward to whatever is going on anywhere – the carols, the choirs and especially the lights.

 

I remember a long-ago Christmas (before the Sunshine Coast was ‘discovered’) – when I made all my Christmas gifts. Out of necessity. People in my life have been pretty good sports: what did my ten-year-old niece think of the paper mache box full of scented potpourri? Did my brother-in-law like the photograph of his children laughing with my own, in a hand-glued, home-made wood picture frame? I do notice that in keeping with the kind of gift I give, that the gifts given back to me are less ambitious: I’m relieved; it’s difficult to compete with money when you don’t have much. But what I’ve found when making the gift is: I spend more time thinking about the person I’m giving it to.

My own sister is ruthless. If she’s given anything she doesn’t like or can’t use, she immediately and obviously gives it away to someone else, like good riddance to that awful clutter. Once I was present: she and her husband looked at a gift and grunted. She’s wrestled with Christmas, the relentlessness of it, the promise, the nostalgia, the brutality.

So, after all is bought and wrapped, after all is sung and eaten, what is Christmas all about? For me, it is a cultural and family ritual, one of the few I have left in my life. I came from a family whose everyday life was laced with repetitive, religious rituals. We gathered every night to say the rosary, we went to mass every Sunday to be reminded of our obligations, were dragged to extracurricular ceremonies every time there was another excuse to insert reminder doctrine into our lives. And during the time before Christmas, (Advent) we used to light a little wreath, accented with one pink and three purple candles. And then, every night as we recited the rosary, which was unbearably boring, our gaze kept coming back to those flickering flames brightening the darkness. Now I’m critical of the underlying intentions: conformity, especially mental conformity. Still, I light candles almost every day at this time of year.

For me, Christmas is a celebration of birth. We can all participate because we’ve all been born. As a mother, I feel that Christmas celebrates me as a woman who has given birth and all women who have given birth. It celebrates my son as someone who has been born.  It celebrates my husband, a caring and supportive parent who helped me bring that child into the world.

For me, Christmas is a time to look back on the year and settle things I’ve been too busy for. I used to organize the year’s photos into a book, but the years kept stacking up. I reach out to friends I haven’t heard from in a while. I look at what I’ve achieved and what I’m still hoping to do. It’s also a time of letting go.

It’s a time to make peace with others, to work through that misunderstanding and come out better friends. It’s a time to be generous and to receive the generosity of others.

 

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