What do most people do on the day after Christmas?
I’m not an expert on most people so I have no idea.
For me, it’s back to work, and I’m neither mad nor thrilled about it.
This holiday season has been one of transition. Not only in holiday traditions, but in life traditions. Shaken to the core with memories of the past looked at in a new light, I’m learning that change is vital and necessary, if painful and terrifying too. That’s taken precedence over any celebratory aspect of the season, so I’m happy to see Christmas and Thanksgiving and all the rest of it complete their long trajectories this year and slink into the past. Get this show over so I can begin again.
Christmas has always been anti-climactic. Nothing ever measures up to expectations. That lesson was learned long ago, but every now and then I forget and slip into a hopeful mode of childish wonder, when I think this year might be magical, this year might be better.
It never is.
Oh there are happy holidays, and some Christmases are better than others, but all that goodwill and getting along lasts a night, maybe two. Then it’s over. Then the winter begins in earnest. Then it’s dark and cold and real and all the demons from the past return with a vengeance because you’ve tried to silence them with a false balm of peace and cheer.
Having said that, there are ways to deal with the holidays, and this year I taught myself a few of them. Largely removing parties and big (and even little) get-togethers has markedly removed a great deal of stress from this busy time of the year. Next year I may pare it down even further. (For instance, I dragged out and put up all the Christmas decorations shortly after Thanksgiving, and no one besides Andy and me has seen any of them, so why even bother?) Next Christmas I may forego the decorating altogether. I may take a trip somewhere far away and get my time in with loved ones when we might actually be able to talk and connect. The hustle and bustle of the holidays makes authentic connection almost impossible.
These are just ideas now, abstract notions likely dreamed up in the bitterness and disappointment of all that’s happened this season. Perhaps I’ll find a shred of Christmas hope when the fall rolls around again, when I’ve had some sun and summer to warm the heart from the outside in. Or perhaps this is it for Christmas.
I won’t be sorry if that is so.
