Holidays

“Can you just pretend to be happy?” Image by Nick M. W.

‘Blue Christmas’ or ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’? What’s your mood?

Some people look forward to this time of year. It puts them in a good mood. Maybe it’s their reward for putting up with whatever the year threw at them. I’m one of those people who find joy in the holidays. Everyone has their moments, but I’m a pleasant dude to be around throughout the year. Something happens during the holiday season, though, that puts the best things in my life―my family and friends―into focus. I appreciate them more. They annoy me less.

Maybe this is why some people love this time of year, too.

Other people who dread this time of year might feel that way because they’re alone, and the holidays exacerbate their loneliness. Some people don’t like the manufactured goodwill and joy that corporations spread for profit during the holidays. People feel financial pressure around this time of year in general, and this year in particular finances are tight and budgets are thin. Talk about pressure.  

For some folks, the family gatherings―the thing I love the most about the holidays―is the same thing they despise about the holidays. I get it, though. Some families suck and being around a sucky family can be destructive. All of you folks struggling right now, anxious of the upcoming obligations to be around people you don’t like, with no hope that the spirit of the season will lift you up out of the dark, hang in there. It’ll be over soon.

Appreciation

I need to express more appreciation for what I have and stop letting comparison be the thief of my joy.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. There’s no emphasis on gifts and giving them and being excited about getting a gift you neither want or like. Thanksgiving is all about the relationships we have with loved ones, and it’s about eating good food and just appreciating what you have in that m.

In my comfortable yet shrinking middle-class American life, I have much to be thankful for. It is true that I am just one bad break away from being in a tough financial spot, but let’s look away from that and focus on the things that matter: family and friends.

“Rich in love.”

It doesn’t pay the bills like cold hard cash, but it means more. My house was filled with family and friends on Thanksgiving, and we were LUCKY to be able to have the place and the space to host them. We were lucky to have the bounty of food and all the leftovers. What kind of jerk complains about having to eat the same food once a day for a couple of days?

This Thanksgiving, we were fortunate to celebrate with laughs instead of tears.

I bitch about a lot, and I tend to carry the weight of other people’s suffering in my mind, but I have to take a second to appreciate what I have and not pay any mind to what I don’t. The material things don’t matter, and I won’t be able to enjoy the living breathing joys in my life forever.

If you have the same type of joy in your life, show them some appreciation.

Guess who’s coming to town. Image by Nick M. W.

The Spirit of Christmas

I don’t remember how old I was when I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but sometime around the 4th grade seems right. It made sense that he was more of a myth than a real person who knew some sort of supernatural magic. Even though I knew he wasn’t real, I still fancied the notion that by keeping the Christmas Spirit alive, we made Santa Claus real.

Although we recently killed him off in our house, his spirit is alive. His days existing as a real person in our daughter’s imagination have come to an end. She’s 9, and that played a part in our grand revelation. My wife and I had been peppering her with questions about the validity of this Santa Claus narrative since last Christmas. We would ask her to detail the logistics of the event with suspicion in our tone.

“How exactly does Santa deliver all of these presents in one night?”

“How can he fly around the world so fast?”.

The truth was nearly revealed during a recent seasonal viewing of The Santa Clause, a 90s movie about a guy who doesn’t believe in Santa yet becomes Santa because of a chance occurrence and a tiny contractual obligation. That movie is filled with all sorts of Santa denial, but our daughter never seemed to notice what the adult characters were saying about the validity of Santa’s existence.

We’ve watched this movie with her once every Christmas since she was born. Okay, so she was but a wee little scrub for most of those viewings, and even now, in her advanced elementary age, she still tends to tune out most dialogue during a movie or show, preferring to instead ask her parents about key plot points or character motivations during the movie. It makes for ideal viewing.

This time, though, when Scott Calvin’s ex-wife, Laura, described the moment and reason why she stopped believing in Santa, our daughter turned to us and gave us a quizzical look.

“Wait. Is Santa real?” she said, half-smiling like she knew it was a silly question to ask because of course he’s real. You wouldn’t lie to me, FOR YEARS, would you, mom and dad?

Well...

I’ve been ready for this question or for her eventual discovery that Santa is not real, for a minute. Neither one of those two scenarios ended up unfolding. Instead, around Halloween this year, our daughter asked us about the economy during dinner. She wanted to know what inflation meant and how it affected people’s cost of living. She didn’t quite ask it like that, but she was in the ballpark.

In explaining to her how inflation makes things more expensive, everything from the essentials to non-essentials, like toys. Then I just went for it and said that economics plays a role in determining how much people can spend during Christmas, and it explains why some kids get more gifts than other kids.

“It’s because Santa Claus isn’t real. People buy gifts for each other.”

She paused and absorbed what I said. Then, she ran through several Christmas gifts she’d received over the years and asked if they were from mom and dad or Santa. We told her it was us and other people, like grandmas and grandpas and other family members. After that moment of clarity, she asked one more question about which one of her parents was drinking the milk and eating the cookies (me). Then, I dove right into a speech that I’d prepared a year ago:

“Santa, the magical person who lives in the North Pole and drives a flying sleigh pulled through sky by eight fancy caribou (and, allegedly, a non-canonical ninth reindeer, who has a very shiny nose) is not real. No, he is not a real person, BUT the ‘Spirit of Christmas,’ which Santa and his reindeer and his elves represent, is very much real, and those of us who believe in the Christmas Spirit carry it with us throughout the holiday season and the year. We’re all kind of like Santa.”

She handled it well. She understood the message. She’s a good kid.