I listened to the same Christmas carol over and over on the morning of the 26th.
It was glorious - and proof that the warm glow of a special moment doesn't always show up during the actual moment.
If I had to pick one favorite Christmas tune, it’s “I Saw Three Ships” (which, for the longest time, I thought was named “Christmas Day in the Morning”). Earlier today — on the morning of December 26th — I walked around my neighborhood playing the King’s College Choir’s rendition of “I Saw Three Ships” (from the album above). I played it over and over, feeling more and more moved to sing along as I walked.
Since this was the morning after Christmas morning, I thought I might feel like I’d missed the moment — that pang of regret that you’ve missed-out on something that only comes once a year, something that can’t be re-generated after the fact. But it didn’t turn out that way. Not only did it feel like there was still a mystical spark in the air, but I also felt warmed and excited by the prospect of connecting and spreading good cheer with my neighbors.
I was lucky this year — for a number of reasons, I’d been having a difficult time getting in touch with the Christmas spirit. Well into the evening on December 24th, I was feeling disconnected from any inkling of this being a magical occasion — not only as my 5-year old brimmed with excitement, but as I myself reveled in the thrill at having found the perfect gifts for her at the last minute.
I mean, finding those gifts felt fantastic, and I was really looking forward to Christmas morning, but I still feel fortunate that things turned around on a more unseen level…
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As the hour inched closer and closer to midnight, it was as if I’d arrived at a rendezvous point, where I was met by those powerful sensations I remember from the holidays of my childhood — radiance, warmth, joy, and the unmistakable feeling that something transcendent is happening. I can remember times where I felt like I could practically reach out and touch something invisible, like a benevolent charge permeating everything.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have ever experienced those feelings in the first place — and I attribute my good fortune one hundred percent to my mom and my grandmother. Not only did both of them go all-out to ensure that Christmas was truly special for me and my brother, but both of them seemed to swoon with excitement around the holidays.
It wasn’t just the gift-giving or the religious aspect — although those things were obviously of the utmost importance to both of them — it was the sheer romance that just radiated from them. Sometimes, for example, I could actually hear my mom’s breath being taken away when she’d open the blinds to the sight of the park across the street covered in a fresh coat of snow.
Likewise, you could just read the giddy anticipation on my grandmother’s face during Christmas season — looking back, it’s amazing to me that someone at that age would be able to sustain excitement that rivaled what I, a child, was feeling. For me, my childhood joy around Christmas is impossible to separate from this broader luminescence that had infused my mother and grandmother.
Of course, once I hit my late teens, those feelings became more elusive. Into adulthood, there have been some years years, understandably, where the warm glow doesn’t show up at all, and I’ve gotten accustomed to being satisfied as long as I can revive that feeling for even 15 minutes. That’s enough. I’d prefer that the feeling come before December 25th, but if it makes its way to me afterwards, then that’s fine too.
I ended up having quite the lovely Christmas day yesterday, but because I was up late wrapping presents, I didn’t get to listen to “I Saw Three Ships” on Christmas morning. As I strolled through my neighborhood earlier today and marveled at my good fortune that somehow I hadn’t let something precious slip through my fingers, I grinned as it occurred to me that ‘Ya know, sometimes ya gotta just let yourself be looser with time.’
At that same instant, an image came into my head of my daughter admonishing me at some point several years into the future, like “Dad, you can’t just choose to celebrate things when you feel like it because you don’t feel like being tethered by time the way the rest of us have to be. Sometimes people — I — need you to show up and be ready on the actual date.”
Okay, to be fair, I did show up on the actual date for her with Christmas gifts in hand and spent the whole day with her as well. It’s not like she would say I abandoned my post on Christmas. But even though this is a future version of her speaking to me from my own imagination, I do see her point.
Special occasions can be slippery for me, and I often feel like I’m freezing-up. That can obviously be dangerous, because it’s only a matter of time before I’ll feel pulled away to this more abstract place on an occasion when my daughter’s life, in a very real sense, depends on me to provide a concrete foundation that does adhere to the constraints of the calendar we all observe.
Still, we have to be patient with ourselves when the special-ness of a moment rears its head after the moment.
The Christmas holiday, almost by definition, puts way too much pressure on us, which all too often just leaves people feeling cornered, flat, and empty. (Not to mention that we get burned-out from a relentless marketing onslaught that now takes up a full two months of the calendar.) While I’ve long been aware that each of us is put in a position to chase after sensations from our past that are nearly impossible to re-create (I mean, that aspect is hard to miss), it’s taken me decades to recognize that I had to define what I even wanted out of the holidays to begin with.
If you celebrate Christmas, it’s important to kind of re-negotiate your relationship with this ritual that the entire culture around you jumps into with both feet. At times, it can feel like the whole thing is a mass exercise in autopilot behavior.
For me personally, it turns out that what I’m seeking — for any holiday or special occasion — is a none-too-easy balance between togetherness and space. I prefer small, cozy gatherings in general, and I also like to have some alone time to just kind of soak things in and reflect. If I lean too far in either direction, I feel cramped on the one hand or just left-out with this marooned feeling like holy shit, i am A-L-O-N-E on the other. And then, of course, there’s the sense of obligation to others.
I’m not quite to the point that Meghan Dunn describes in this excellent post she wrote this past Thanksgiving, but half of me can totally relate!
It would be one thing, though, if I were perfectly content just being off to myself where I can sit things out in peace. But that by itself doesn’t work for me. I have a past legacy of feeling connected and wonderful and kind of bathed in love that it hurts to ignore as much as it hurts to force it back into being. Meanwhile, it’s super-important to me to drum-up — and participate in — a celebratory atmosphere of some sort.
I mean, one of the most enjoyable parts of the days leading up to and immediately following Christmas, for me, is just being able to luxuriate in music, reading, and (unhurried!) one-on-one time with friends. December 26th, in fact, is one of my favorite days of the year — and that’s because I almost always spend it alone. I intentionally set that day aside as a gift of solitude to myself. Nevertheless, my ideal holiday requires large, counterbalancing doses of ceremony and belonging in order to feel complete…
Today on my walk I passed a house near mine with a sun/moon metal piece facing out towards the sidewalk. I took some pics of it and then figured I’d better leave a note, like “Hey, I’m the person who was taking pics of your porch — just so you know I live right down the street.” I also passed a home on the same street whose Christmas decorations have been really pleasant to look at over the last month because they’re visible from several different rooms in the house I live in. I was like “Lemme leave a note for them too.”
So I went back home and searched around for blank paper when I realized I had these gorgeous vintage-style Christmas cards that I hadn’t filled out this year.
I picked three out of the box — one apiece for the two neighbors, and another for me to display on the mantle next to the Christmas tree. I filled the cards out — savoring the rough texture of the cardstock at my fingertips and happy in the knowledge that my neighbors would see the tiny specks of glitter on the envelopes — and dropped them in the mail slots of each house.
It was glorious, late or not.
<3 SRK
Thanks for dropping in that tune. My childhood Christmases were full of that music. My eldest brother was a King's chorister from the age of 8 through to 12 back in the late 60's/70's. We used to listen to him on the radio when they broadcast the Nine Lessons and Carols and I couldn't believe he was part of it. I was 5 years old the first year he sang with the choir. One year, we were there in the chapel because he had been chosen to sing the solo for Silent Night. It was a special honour every year for one child. I resonate with all you say about the sense of transcendence, a sense that has definitely been diminished over the years, as the culture of my own children's Christmases has been completely without any of that. They have had such a different childhood to me and no other experience than Christmas displays that so vividly. That knowledge of transcendence sits deep inside my soul though. I think that they will have their own moments like that, we all come to it differently don't we? I love what you did with the cards. Perfect. :-)