Since leaving Buffalo, I’ve spent Christmas on a farm in
Wisconsin, in lovely homes on the South and North Sides of Chicago and the
western suburbs, in an upscale prefab in South Carolina, in small homes in
southern California and southern Indiana, with a parent in a nursing home and with
a dear friend in a retirement facility. I’ve been alone and I’ve hosted a
houseful. I’ve been with family of origin or family of the heart, the two not being
mutually exclusive. I’ve gone way beyond my budget and arrived with bags of
festive boxes or had no budget at all and could only give handmade presents.
Through all of that there were three constants. The first is
music. I have fond memories of years of Christmas concerts and caroling. Recently
a friend said that she found the music of the season depressing. I’m the
opposite. I love it, well most of it, as long as it’s played or sung in the
old-fashioned way with not a lot of the currently popular vocal embellishments.
Another constant was an inner voice that said the day had meaning in itself. That
got me through many decades of hoping for that Norman Rockwell moment that
never came.
The final constant was acknowledging the need to do
something that actually made the season meaningful for me. Some years it was
lighting advent candles nightly. Others it was sending notes and cards. Last
year I did a lot of entertaining. For many years now I have saved my cards and
opened them on Christmas morning. Wherever you are on the holiday spectrum –
love, dread, ignore – I hope that you are doing something today or this week
that will help end this year on the right kind of note for you.
Marilyn
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