Christmas Musings 2017

I've always  loved Christmas, but as it's changed through the years, I haven't always changed with it. So the last few years, instead of trying to recreate "the perfect Christmas," I'm more interested in capturing the present iteration. Because really--comparing the present to past will by necessity show one as lesser. Beyond that, it is only today that exists in real time, and I want to be fully present in the present.

I've also been experimenting with a type of poetry called an American Sentence. 17 syllables, and thus this Christmas Musing:

Can anything ever feel like Christmas? And by that very phrase fall short
Of cumulative childhood magic where fantasy and reality
Blur together in nostalgic haze--enchanted mists built of giggles
At midnight, Santa visits, cookie crumbs on his plate proving him real.

Months of dreaming culminating in twinkling tree and presents beneath.
We grew up, and in place of past magic created Christmas dreaming
For our kids, thus breathed the wisps of wonder once again. Then they grew up.
And there is no capturing of past twice removed, so I surmise...

Christmas is not a magic to create. It's a moment to live.
Let us live it fully, freely, dimmed by no taint of comparison;
Lessened by no impossible longings of childhood reminiscing.
Complete in itself. Perfect for the one-off event that each day is.

Oh yes. We shall capture Christmas this year, and it will be beyond compare.

Blessings on your Christmas and may it be not what once was, but steeped in the richness of today.

Today has Never Happened Before

Last year I struggled at Christmas time, and I think it boiled down to the fact that despite my best efforts, I was not able to recreate what we'd had in prior years. Despite the traditions we held to, despite the constant chorus of carols, it fell short of magic for me. I wrote a poem. A lament of sorts.

But then it began to dawn on me that I was looking at this all wrong. So I wrote yet another post: Fresh Christmas, and I felt better because I had a plan. But I'll be honest--it felt thin and unsatisfying, because I came to it barely in time to give it a try.

However, now that another year has sprinted by, I'm having a chance to practice in real time what I glimpsed last year: to add to my collection a newly minted, never-happened-quite-like-this Christmas. And I'm glad to report that the sadness of last year is not gnawing at me like a hungry shadow.

Instead,  I'm finding that this year, I want Christmas to be whatever it will be, and what it is--a day, a season that has not happened in quite this way before. Rather than trying to make it fit a pattern I absorbed when I was a child and then have tried to re-capture every year since pretending lost its realness, I am watching Christmas 2016 unfold.

This is not a lesser season for the fact that members of our family are halfway across the country, and others halfway across the world. It is not a lesser season because gift giving this year looks different. It is not lesser because activities are not as group oriented as on other Christmases. Something can only be lesser by comparison.
And how can we judge as lesser a day that has never happened just because it doesn't mimic one that has?

To re-create Christmas is an impossible task. Even if every piece matches, we're older, changed, and it's not the first time. In the act of re-creation, the magic of discovery is replaced with the damper of comparison.

And it is not by comparison we discover new treasures. It is by viewing each day, including this Christmas as a one-of-a-kind event, a day, a season that has never happened before and will never happen again in exactly this 2016 way. We can do familiar things with an eye for the unfolding of the new day, and let each variation and repetition of traditions be part of a unique occasion.

In holding too tightly to Christmas past, we can miss the wonder and the gift in Christmas present. In measuring this day against others, we risk missing the wonder it holds, risk not being fully present or fully enjoying what is. So I don't know what Christmas 2016 looks like.


I'm  going to find that out, one new discovery at a time. 

Capturing Christmas

Christmas is almost upon us, but I feel as if I'm running after it, trying to capture its essence as if it were an elusive snowflake caught on a current of wind. So I play carols on spotify. I stare at the lights on our Christmas tree, and I ponder how to "feel" Christmas-y

  And I also wonder:

Where has Christmas magic      gone?

Did I leave it in the land of childhood where

We breathed the rare air

Of bigger-than-life hopes and dreams

All hanging on the happenings

Of one December night

When sleigh bells 

And angel songs 

Shimmered the air 

Like silvering of the veil between seen and not seen?

When did sleepless eves of Christmas past

Bright lights and starry eyes

Give way to growing up?

And when did suspension of belief 

Meld slowly into a surer and less sweet knowledge that magic,

Christmas magic,

Is fragile?

I don't have those answers,

But I do know this:

Christmas magic may be fragile 

And yet it endures

Preserved by the strong belief of children

And the strong love of adults who hold the stage curtains as backdrop

For a generation who in their turn will grow up and light the lights, 

Play the music,

Tell the Birthday story,

And keep Christmas magic shimmering

And alive for one more year.

Hosting Royalty

This past week, I got to be part of an amazing event: More than 120 tables filled the huge civic auditorium, each holding 8 people and decorated with  unique holiday-themed settings. A chef-crafted meal, a team of servers in black and white, greeters, transportation crew, table bussers, kitchen staff, and more all collaborated for the effort, assisted by artists, singers, Christmas elves, and picture ops with Santa. Why? For the express purpose of honoring greatness.

The guests were not monarchs from other nations, nor lords and ladies with famous names. Media does not value or know these individuals. Many did not even value themselves. Somewhere along life's journey they had lost some if not all vision for pursuing dreams, and it was our job and our joy to speak to the treasure within them, to awaken them to hope again by reminding them of what they may have forgotten about who they are. We wanted to do this not through words, but by treating them with dignity, honor, and grace, and giving them a day to remember.

Some walked through the doors pushing all their worldly goods in little rolling basket-carts. Another left his dog tied to the bushes outside, guarding bike and backpack while big feathery snowflakes drifted down. But in spite of these and other such situations, many wished me "Merry Christmas" as they passed by, and their smiles were heartfelt. I was so impressed. One couple at my table cheerily announced they lived in a tent.  "What do you do when it snows like this?" I asked, to which they replied as if they had the best set-up ever: "We have a heater!"

 From the raucous little boys in the table behind mine to the baby dressed in Christmas best for her picture with Santa, it was the children that impressed me the most, though. I marveled at the way they immersed themselves in the wonder of the moment, and had not yet forgotten their greatness. One little boy stood up to show me how tall he was and let me feel his muscles. "I'm Daddy's strong boy," he said with a toothless grin. His sister confided that she is her daddy's brave girl, and undertook to teach me her family members' names. One child wanted to be a singer, another a writer, and as they confided this, the light of a thousand possible horizons shone in their eyes.

Our teams set about to give, but in the end, it was we who received, for we came away knowing we had gazed on something of wonder and magic. But after all, isn't that how it works when royalty comes to call?