First of all, I am not one of those people who is offended by the early appearance of Christmas. Once upon a time, I was totally the person that put their Christmas tree up around mid November. Why not? Why should I wait all year to only enjoy 4 weeks of the decorations, the music, the movies, the presents? I would be happier with a solid 8 weeks of Christmas. :) It would be awesome if cities kept up Christmas lights all year. In college, the day after Thanksgiving my radio would find a permanent home on the station playing 24 hour Christmas music, which also sickeningly was the station with Delilah...
Which brings me to number 2: I'm not a fan of Thanksgiving. We could skip it (keep the time off though) and my life would not be impacted. I'll eat Thanksgiving dinner, but I have never craved nor looked forward to it. I don't like stuffing. The best part of sweet potatoes are the marshmallows (my sister and I from time to time have made valiant attempts to change the potato-marshmallow ratio). Turkey is only good when smothered beyond the point of recognition in brown gravy. Although I will say I really love Joan's homemade rolls, and I have discovered that I really like making snobby pies. But again we could skip Thanksgiving and make it Christmas Part One and that would be way more awesome.
The last two years though, the idea of celebrating my favorite season was about as welcome as a case of lice. In 2010, Christmas Part One/Part Two was forced participation. Our lives were in turmoil beyond what I'd like to remember, and celebrating anything seemed ridiculous and fake. We didn't decorate. We were spending all of our money on existing, and presents were as minimal as possible. We tried once to listen to my amazing Christmas playlist, but after a couple of songs we turned it off and never brought it out again. The spirit of generosity was not there, but we recognized the holidays simply because we were supposed to.
In 2011, we celebrated Thanksgiving jointly with my Williams clan which was great. I think that the different approach to the holiday was helpful in keeping the obvious absence to a minimum. Christmas came... that's about it. It came. I put up the tree but didn't bother to decorate, or most of the time even plug it in. My house was completely dark on the block. The playful joy of making a Christmas list seemed laborious. I did enjoy making cookies with my sister, but I could have done without the rest. Carrying on the "Mom Prefers Vodka" tradition that Roger started years before (long story) was sweet and humorous but also carried a weight of sadness it didn't used to.
There is something sad about being indifferent during the holiday season when it was once something I was passionate about - yes passionate. The Christmas season always brought out a more joyful, optimistic, generous, happy, a better me, and even in the moment it is sad when you feel nothing.
But you can't force Christmas and all its precipitates.
About two weeks ago I felt a strange yet familiar twinge... a desire for gingerbread and Vince Guaraldi. And so I'm going to foster that which I haven't felt for a long time: in honor of the rapidly approaching Christmas Part One, I'm going to put up the tree tomorrow, ornaments and all, with some Christmas jams in the background. It would be really great to find some joy in the season again.
Don't feel guilty if you still call it "Thanksgiving."
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