We have arrived at the first of December, easing into the high holiday season with a little holly and ivy, and a couple of rustic renditions of this traditional Christmas carol. As December has only just begun, it feels too soon to be so consumed by the chaos and cacophony of holiday mayhem, and so I’m pushing back, clearing the mental space and readjusting the mindset with a return to simplicity. This is my usual goal at this time of the year: to make the holidays a simple and quiet experience that approaches something slightly spiritual.
That’s not always an easy frame of mind to maintain, and I have often spun way off trying to do too many things and see and entertain too many people, but in the age of COVID, staying somewhat isolated and safer lends for more moments of quiet and stillness. For a socially-anxious introvert, it’s my comfort zone, and instead of resisting that in an effort to fit in and go with the flow, I’m embracing my natural state of being. Hence this quieter beginning…
This is not one of those bombastic Christmas songs that all the kids love to sing. It’s old-fashioned, with a multi-layered history of meanings – the crux of the Christian and the Pagan or some other bullshit – but when I was a kid it was one of those songs that signified the role of nature in the Christmas season, and the outdoor beauty of winter.
It was the crystalline magnificence of the morning sunlight through a piece of ice dangling off the edge of an evergreen leaf. It was the gloriously sharp scent of pine trees, entwined with the faint smoke of a fireplace somewhere in the distance. It was a winter walk in the woods, away from people and noise and the stresses of everyday life. It was something that feels less real to me the older I get, but I know I had those moments because I remember them – scattered and vague and likely an amalgamation of various woodland memories – and no less real because of that.
Between the suburbs and the city, most of the brushes with holly and ivy that I get these days are part of landscaping or gardens – a far cry from any forest path that probably never existed in the first place. That’s where these photos came from: a stand of holly along the Southwest Corridor Park in Boston, and a patch of ivy in front of some brownstone. On the grand scale of things, they may not be all that spectacular, but when taken in up-close they become a little forest in and of themselves. Stilling the moment to pause and reflect on the holiday memories that each evoked, it was possible to conjure entire winter worlds from a single leaf and berry.
That sort of imaginary enchantment – an actual bit of Christmas magic – is the province of children mostly, especially children around Christmastime. Returning to that place isn’t always easy as an adult, but every now and then, such as when I brush by some holly followed moments later by a bit of ivy, I manage to muster such magic.
Whenever this holiday season starts to veer away from this central tenet of seasonal significance, I will return to this post as a reminder of a simpler time. It will also serve to remind of the beauty of winter – and that always lasts much longer than Christmas.
Welcome, December.
From your scarlet berries of holly to the entwining tendrils of your ivy, you inspire with your raw beauty. Tucked into the very end of the calendar year, you are the finale and the beginning of something new all at once.
