So, This is Christmas?
Christmas was different this year. And New Year’s Eve will be different. (If the latter statement does not apply to you, please reevaluate your plans… that’s all I will say about that.)
Even though my mom made a tremendous hunk of salmon, a whole chicken, and over two feet of skirt steak (among other, veg-friendly dishes), she was only serving nine people on Christmas Day. Even though we baked a batch of cookies and not one but two layer cakes, we were not throwing the bash we usually do. Even though the snow almost stuck around, we saw a grey Christmas, and I thought of the kids around the world fearing for Santa’s safety in the 50mph winds. This is all typical for 2020, maybe, but certainly the typical holiday atmosphere is not telling your grandma to cancel her flights or getting a brain swab just to see someone you’ve known your whole life.
We all know this: as you get older, the magic of Christmas changes. I was going to say “fades,” but that’s not entirely the truth. For me, as a 23-year-old, and for most adults out there, the joy of Christmas becomes the gift giving, not the receiving. While the joy of Christmas used to be riding home late from Long Island and admiring the lights through fogged car windows, it’s now hoping that the coat you bought your mom fits. The joy becomes more practical, nostalgic, as though we are happy for this Christmas because we remember how happy Christmas made us in the past.
This year, my family’s Christmas Day ended with Wonder Woman 1984, which I give a .5 our of 10 stars (that half point is purely for the opening scene with the little girl). It felt like another weekend night with a poor movie choice and dreams of the next NYT crossword. And we woke up on Saturday to a Christmas tree, once more with nothing beneath it, in need of some water so we can keep it looking nice until we, quite literally, kick it to the curb. We could have been waiting for Christmas to happen, but we were preparing to clean it up. As you get older, you cannot tell the difference.
Starting around age, say, thirteen, we start stripping Christmas of a bit of its sparkle. Of course, that innocence within us—the one that works to please Santa (even when we’re sleeping) and asks for American Girl Dolls—wanes. But the real reason Christmas changes, I believe, is that we replace this innocent glee with anxiety. Will the gifts arrive on time? Will my sisters like what I got them? How many emails will I have to sort through when I get back from work? It’s like Christmas is another inconvenience in a calendar full of them. Work is interrupted by the holidays which are interrupted by work which is interrupted by another holiday which is interrupted by work, and on and on. I think we all, myself included, need to figure out exactly what the true interruptions are and where to pick back up the lines of the lives we want to live. I’m here ‘til Thursday, folks.
What I am really trying to say, if you dig hard enough through the ramble bramble above, is that 2020 did a great job of making me realize how difficult it is to take holidays as true breaks from life’s doldrums. More than ever, we are looking forward to the New Year and willing to abandon “the now” to get there. You tell yourself, “it’s Christmas, so I should be happy and worry-free,” but that’s not reality. Reality is much more complex than that.
Apologies, of course, for depressing you, my few readers, but this is what was on my mind. You clicked the link.
And I will go no further with the musings. I do hope that everyone was able to have a nice Christmas, even if it was lonelier and rife with fatalistic undertones, as mine apparently was. To pull it back to my title, let’s be grateful that the “[social and emotional] war [that was 2020] is over.” Now get off your phone and read a book.