We are just weeks from the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, where in the northern hemisphere we will begin and end our day in darkness. The sun has been preparing us for such a turn, tucking us in each night a few minutes earlier and willing us to rest into morning a few minutes later. My clock, my calendar knows no bounds, though I feel the call for rest. For as we drift towards darkness, we also move towards the holidays. Those end of year celebrations: parties and concerts, warm meals and cookies and treats to the delight of every imagination, rooms filled with family and friends. In the air, excitement rings.
This time of year is always a mixed bag for me. I love the lights. As a child, I loved to look at the Christmas tree, squinting to see the colors blend together and move as I turned my head, my entire vision a blur of color, a blur of light. They bring a welcome cheer to the droll pre-dinner darkness and a distraction from the cold, waning days of the year. And then there’s the loneliness, the heartache that accompanies the cheer – for me, the memory of that Christmas we spent planning for the premature birth of our daughter, stillborn after we celebrated the birth of the child come to save. The music did not stop, and there were lightening days to tend to in the new year to follow. I have come to love the darkness, too. When the festivities overwhelm, darkness and the required stillness that comes with it offer reprieve. When cheer and celebration overcrowd, darkness offers recognition. In the darkness, in the ordinary turn of the earth with its lengthening nights, I am seen. As I write this, I know that I’m not alone, and here, I hope you find companionship.
I’m thinking of you this time of year. How it is that at the end of the year, we get to this point: exhausted, crawling towards the holidays for the reprieve we know we need, only to pile on more to our to do lists that may be longer than a child’s list to Santa. I’m thinking of you in the thick of holiday cheer where there feels no room for anything but, and so you put out the lights and bake the cookies and show up with an unquestionable smile, waiting for the most wonderful time of year to be over. I’m thinking of you with the empty chair at the set holiday table, the waiting crib that remains unused for another year, the chasm created by a story of a promise fulfilled when so many prayers go unanswered.
I’m thinking of each of you, and wondering what it would be to show up tired or sad or angry, even to this time of year: wonder – meaning astonishing or miracle – belies more complexity than what we can find within the four corners of a greeting card. In wonder there is room for wholeness. The most wonderful time of year, truly.
At the start of each season, I ask my husband what he wants out of it: what’s most important to you? We make a list and put it on the calendar and then we invite in other plans, as we are able. Naming what’s important to us is about the activities, yes, and about the feelings, too: what do we appreciate and want to cherish? When it is over, how do we want to reflect on this time? The exercise is imperfect (last winter we spent Christmas holed up in our house with the flu and then a round of strep), and it’s meaningful nonetheless. Because in the midst of the noise and the endless list of shoulds this season, we’ve centered what’s important to us. It becomes easier to say yes (and no) to other things – the concerts, the light festivals, the family gatherings, once we’ve named and prioritized what is most important to us. It’s how we get through, how we tend to, this season, in a balance that makes space for all of us.
So this year, as we do most years, we’ll have our own family Christmas between family gatherings, and on the second to last day of the year, we’ll go for a hike, as we always do, to be outside with our daughter who is not at our table. I’ll have a good cry missing her and what never came to be, in between celebrating all of what is beautiful and joyous in my present day.
for reflection
What do you enjoy about the holiday season? How might you practice where you find joy?
How might you make room for wonder in the holidays this year?
Pingback: there is spaciousness here, on the shortest day of the year – eightstrong
Thank you for this beautiful reflection. There were many connections with my experience. Even as a child and how I looked at the Christmas tree lights. Being quite near-sighted, when I looked at the Christmas tree without my glasses on, the tree would disappear and all I would see were huge round blurry lights overlapping each other.
You would think being retired now that all the rush and busy-ness and distraction would have left me free to engage with reflection in this season. The fleeting sense of what God gave to us and at what cost. Caught up in my culture of celebrations, at night I look at lights and see how yes, how much we need, crave light in darkness. But I am breathless in my running around and for the last week have been telling myself – next year I must do this differently.
I may not have all the same connections as you have, but I want you to know that I have never stopped remembering both of your first daughters.
Beth