I’m trying to find words to talk about Christmas because I did a lot of complex emotional sorting across the holiday, but I don’t want to give the impression that the holiday was bleak or sad even though it had sadness threaded through it. I’m put in mind of an art term: chiaroscuro. In a painting it is the contrasted light and shadow on objects in the image that are created by light falling unevenly. The dark is necessary to see and appreciate the brightness. This Christmas I step back and see the whole picture of a beautiful holiday where I gathered with friends in multiple events, where I gathered with family in both expected and serendipitous ways. Then the heart of the holiday where my children and grandchild gathered in my house to exchange gifts. Around those bright moments are the shadows, the health, financial, and future concerns. I want to honor both the bright and the shadow. I want to explain how the shadows weigh on me, color my moods, and tug my attention off the bright. I want to hold the bright moments in my hands and show them to everyone “See how wonderful this is? Let me hold it over here against the shadow and adjust the light so you can see better.”
Every day of the holiday required adaptations for energy and for food. Howard is our primary cook because he has taken it as his personal mission to make sure that I have delicious things to eat despite my medically necessary elimination diet. Every day Howard pays attention to what we have in the fridge, whether I can eat it, how to make what I can eat be delicious. This interacts with Howard’s chronic fatigue and randomly appearing long covid issues. Standing in the kitchen can be exhausting for him. Cooking for me uses energy that he then doesn’t have available for other things. Most days I step in and act as sous chef, chopping, fetching, assisting. This practiced kitchen dance is joy and grief. Food is a delight and it is hard. Some days we are sad about what I can’t eat and what Howard can’t do. All of this is brought to the fore by the kindness of friends, colleagues, and neighbors who gift us delicious foods. A highlight was the gift basket sent by our book printer. Howard and I stood across the counter as I unwound, un-taped and released each food item from it’s display wrapping. I’d then read the ingredients and if I couldn’t have it I would push it across the counter to Howard instead. Howard accumulated a pile of crackers, cheeses, chocolates, and candies. The only item that stayed with me was a single-serving pouch of pickled asparagus. We laughed about it, finding the joke to ease the sting. Each gift of food was an act of love from people who have no way to know what I can and can’t eat. I am warmed and filled by the love, and each thing I can’t eat reminds me of the medical road I have ahead of me. Bright and shadow.
We didn’t do Christmas morning surprises this year, letting go of a tradition that our family has held for more than twenty-five years. Those surprises were a central focus and joy for Christmas for a long time. Howard and I planned them together, strategizing what to purchase and how to display them. Then we’d march the kids into the room on Christmas morning for the big reveal. Yet for the past few years the reveal has felt vaguely disappointing for everyone. I spent anxious energy trying to figure out how to make the reveal work. For the past few years, the kids (now adults) were good sports about trooping down the stairs to look at the display, but it was vaguely disappointing. I broached the idea of skipping the surprises carefully just after Thanksgiving. Checking to see if anyone would feel like the lack of them ruined Christmas. They all shrugged, and I was relieved. It was a logistical, financial, and emotional burden lifted. One less thing to organize. A relief. Then on Christmas morning there was no structure, no focus, no gathering. No line up, no march. People ate as they woke up and found quiet activities to keep themselves occupied until the planned gift exchange in the afternoon. It felt… empty? uncentered? And I was sad. It was not a sadness to be fixed, it was a final letting go of a role I held for a long time. My children are grown. Our holiday traditions are no longer about the management of over-excitement or teaching kindness and consideration, instead our holiday is a quieter event that focuses more on the individual connections and gathering.
Each year as I’m thinking about gift giving, I always watch for the gift that is a little bit silly, but will make everyone laugh. Shared laughter is an important component of the holiday. This year I found a $10 game at Walmart called “Let’s Hit Each Other with Fake Swords” since sword collecting is an interest for several of my kids, this was perfect. It was received exactly as I’d hoped. Much laughing.
In our discussion of ending Christmas Morning Surprises, Howard mentioned the stockings that go along with them. Mostly our stockings were filled with snack and treat food. I kind of wanted to continue giving treats, but I didn’t love the stockings themselves. Shoving boxes into a stretchy sock was never my preferred way to spend an hour. Howard nodded and said “we’re not really stocking people, we’re more loot crate people” and from there it was just a task of finding the right “crates.” We found collapsible boxes that can be used year after year. I got to fill them with small items and snacks. Everyone got socks and a logic or puzzle book. The loot crates were the final opening of the day and they were joyful. Each box had contents that made the recipient feel seen and loved. This includes Howard and me. I learned long ago to make sure that I also get to have silly, fun items that are just for fun.
My jigsaw puzzle table made an appearance on Christmas Eve and everyone had to step around it for our Nativity celebration that night and for Christmas dinner the next day. Having that puzzle gave me a pleasant thing to do while I was thinking thoughts of shifting traditions on Christmas morning. The complexity of my thoughts were brightened by the way that our nativity gathering the night before had followed our long-held tradition nearly exactly. They were darkened by the fact that coming years may change this tradition too. I don’t know what that quiet half hour with candles means to my kids, particularly the ones who have stepped away from the religion I still hold. For this year we sat in the dark around a wooden nativity pyramid with candles that make it spin. The grand baby watched with bright eyes from his high chair. Bright and dark. Continuity and change. Traditions are shaped to our needs, and we are shaped by holding them or letting them go.
Here I am now, on Boxing Day, looking at the remnants of the holiday, things which must be cleaned up and sorted. The launch of our holiday was disrupted by attending Dragonsteel Con and many of the decorations simply didn’t get put into place. The tree went up, but we never put ornaments on it. I look at it now, dark and bare wondering if that represents anything or if it is just a thing to put away and do differently next year. I’m not going to plan that “differently” yet. The coming year feels like it is going to create a lot of changes in our lives large and small. I can’t plan how traditions will play out next year until I’m settled into those changes.
The greatest gift for me in this holiday season was the grieving threaded through it and woven into it. I needed to be sad about the way some of my things currently are. I’ve been so busy I haven’t taken much time to sit with my sadness about what I don’t get to eat anymore. Howard and I both carry sadness about the days when he can’t do as much as he wants to. I needed to let go of long-held tradition so that in the process I could let go of assumptions about what my family needs. This is a thing I may need to do on a much larger scale, fundamentally changing how we approach our business and the assumed patterns for how our life goes. This holiday I needed to let myself be sad for the roles, patterns, and life that my family no longer has, because until I pass through that grief, and let it go, I will not be able to be joyful about what comes next.
I don’t know what comes next and that is scary. But whether it is bright, or dark, or both I want to be ready to find joy in it.