Merry & Bright

I had no expectations for Christmas this year.

We’ve been so bogged down in doing that I forgot to look up and look forward.

As full as life is on a regular basis, I have a hard time making room for all the extra this season seems to expect. There are still groceries to buy and lunches to pack and laundry to wash and dry and fold.

The everyday seems to take all the magic out of the extra.

Or maybe it’s the extra that takes all the magic out of the everyday?

We chose not to buy and decorate a tree this year. We don’t tend to buy many presents. We don’t have small children who grow giddy with excitement.

There is no snow.

And while I know that Christ came to be born and live and die for us and I know that there is magic in that – I do not feel it this year.

I don’t really feel anything this year, if that is not too callous to say out here on the internet. The season is merely more to-dos and more invites to accept or to refuse and more places to be or to be running late to. We are constantly rushing along to THE NEXT THING without taking time to enjoy the moment where we are right now.

In part, I think, my job is to blame. We’ve been planning Christmas features for clients since September, and when you breathe red & green for three or four months straight you grow a little tired. And then you grow tired of being tired.

I’m not sure what to do about it, either. Last year was the same at a different job: Christmas began in September, and I had all of our blog content laid out and scheduled by December 1st. And then, nothing. No more expectation.

I do think it’s a bit of a crock (my husband uses this term all the time – I thought I’d borrow it) that we are supposed to squeeze all of this holiday glee into a four or six week spurt. How can I be “merry & bright” when I am running on five hours of sleep for the third night straight and have a to-do list 37 items long and they all need to be done right now and it’s dark and foggy and did I mention that there is no snow? It is un-possible.

And there are people that are hungry and people that are wandering the world looking for a safe place to call home and when I stop and think about it for very long it all becomes too much and my heart hurts and I don’t know what to do.

And how does a person change this?

There is no good answer. Or at least not one that doesn’t leave my heart still a little hurt.

I’m beginning to think that maybe the answer isn’t to try to be joyous because it says December on the calendar. Maybe the answer is to try and take merry & bright into the New Year and then all year long. To notice the hurt and to look for places to help even when there aren’t carols being played in every store to remind you to do so. To not let hope fade away with the last Advent candle.

Instead of sending all my merry and all my bright away in Christmas cards this year, instead of packing it all away with the Christmas decor in January, I’m going to take a little with me into 2016 and see how it grows. 

Maybe that is the answer.