[So this is what you call Christmas?]

[Christmas Take I:]

Oh, the In-Between!

Its that time of year again—the lull between holidays. The Great Stretch of Anticipation: Christmas Eve to New Years Day.

Currently seated with Christmas Day firmly behind and New Years coming up quick(er than I’d like), it seems I’m engulfed in the calm between the storms.

A minor dose of Mary’s postpartum for all of mankind?? So much build up, so much anxiety—Will you beat the weather? Are your gifts enough? When in God’s name are you going to wrap them?!!—and what do you do when it’s over?

Sit.

Stare at the tree.

Wonder if the stressors were worth it.

Curl up with a good book.

Wait.

But without knowing what for…

Has it been a good holiday season?

Sure has.

Lots of newness already, for which I‘m incredibly grateful.

Has my time at home been refreshing?

Please…!

I have done nothing but eat, read, and sleep. Oh, and open presents. And play games. And build a snowman. And go snowshoeing.

So yeah, I’d say its been pretty great.

Still, there’s a grown-up air to this season’s celebrations (though, admittedly, you wouldn’t know it by simply glancing at that list of things we’ve done).

It’s an odd aura we’ve been surrounded by.

Its felt a bit like we’re all grasping, trying to find some nostalgic spirit wafting through the rafters, but it escapes us.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Have I reached the point where Christmas is no longer filled with the mystery and intrigue that it used to be? Is that what I’m feeling?

It’s part of it, at least.

I noticed the change when sitting through church.

Usually, we’d race home after church to open our presents. Santa would have come while we were away. We’d track his charcoal footprints across the living room floor. Even after that phase, when Santa’s writing started looking more than vaguely familiar, there was still some magic in the air.

Now the whole thing just seems to be lacking…

I truly don’t mean to be a Grinch.

I hope I haven’t been one. I really have had a good time this year. (I swear it!)

But I sense this is at least partially why people go out and create their own families around this age: to bring the spirit back to family Christmas. All it needs is some childlike imagination, some trust, some awe…

(The real deal, Christmas Day, 2009.)

[Christmas Take II:]

Or maybe the problem with Christmas this time around was that not all of us were there. Aunt Sandy was MIA…and I guess things were especially dull once Nick trekked off to his other celebratory dinner. With such a tiny family, we were out 2/3 of the group! It’s no wonder things felt a bit off.

When we had a delayed Christmas (post-snowstorm) today, the festivities were quite a bit more lively, filled with reminiscing, old family stories, and gleeful laughter. There were dance moves. (All I want for Christmas is a little… Ace of Base?!) There was heated political talk. (Those &*^@# insurance agencies.) There was a simple meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup. (Along with crackers that tasted like Playdoh (exp. Date: 2007).) There were tales from childhoods so distant from my own that I was swept up in the scenes my imagination sketched as they were told…

In the midst of these giggles over who got chased off by the neighbor more often, whose horse ripped down the clothesline, or which great aunt remained sharp-as-a-tack the longest…I had to sit back and admire the way that the lives of my mom, her sister, and their mother were so closely intertwined. I was envious of their farming lifestyle—tribulations as they broke beasts four times their size, terrors of jumping out of haylofts and realizing mid-plunge that they really couldn’t fly, hideouts in the outhouse. Such a different story than my own…

In today’s world, from a perspective occruing a few steps back, I feel very…

cookie-cutter.

Not to mention extremely uneducated in my family’s history. I have never searched for memories of relatives. I don’t know the names of my cousins‘ kids off-hand. I have no idea how many brothers and sisters my grandparents had. The details of people’s lives seem to fall through my cracks. I do not grip them the way I should. Not even those who I surround myself with day in and out. Not even those whom I treasure most.

Is it because I don’t take the time to ask those questions? Is it because I don’t listen when I hear? Is it because I am 23 going on 103 and have no memory of most moments…? Perhaps that is why I find journaling so satisfying. As though it is my own way of capturing the moments, simply so I can hear the story later, after the memories have become less crisp. I have found myself gripping so tightly to each and every hour lately… only to be unable to recall what I’ve filled the timeframe with shortly after. What good is existance if you cannot remember it? If you cannot tell the story?

In moments like these, I feel myself hoping for a God. I want someone to be able to appreciate the story I weave. And—in those especially embarrassing or ridiculous moments when no one is around to see—I want someone to join me in the laughter; in the appreciation of the beauty of impressing no one and being fully exposed and open to the ironies and beautiful failures befalling me.

Silly, how life is.

(Fake Family Christmas, Sunday, December 27, 2009.)