All Is Calm. All Is Bright. This Can Be Your Holiday. REALLY!

"In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives.” 

 --Ann Voskamp

And….it’s begun.

The rush. The dash, The sprint. The marathon. You know, the race so many of us as Americans undertake each year, from the day before Thanksgiving to the day after New Year’s.  For a time that barely adds up to 11 percent of a given year, just forty days, we certainly try and cram as much as we can in between these two holidays, this extended season of the holy and the holly.

What might we call this shared frenzy so many of us undertake come late November? This orgy of shopping and baking, travelling, buying, wrapping, decorating, eating, drinking, and partying? How about the Turkey trot? The holiday hullabaloo? The December derby or perhaps…Santa’s sleigh ride from “h-e double toothpicks.” (Look it up.)  

I know I sound overly dramatic, but if you drive anywhere these December days and run into bumper-to-bumper traffic or if you visit a packed mall or if you try and finish all your end of year stuff at work or when you struggle to plan for visits with family and friends…well. It is as if overnight, the culture goes from fifty-five miles an hour on pre-Turkey day to ninety miles an hour and then it does not slow down until the new year finally arrives. 

This is not just experienced by folks like me, who “do” the holidays for a living: clergy, people in retail, restaurant employees, package delivery drivers, postal service employees, and transportation workers. So many of us are forced to climb all board the speeding holiday train and then not be able to get off it, until early next month.

There’s lots of reasons for this.

Businesses, especially after COVID: these depend on you and me opening our wallets and spending big bucks. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent $650 on average for holiday gifts in 2020. That doesn’t include travel or eating out or decorations. That’s a lot of money, especially if you are on a fixed income, at the lower end of the pay scale or are out of work.  For those of less means, it must be hard to see all those sparkly and joyful advertisements for consumption that promise happiness, but if only we spend. And even if we do have the means to shop ‘til we drop, there’s always the risk of having a wicked debt hangover post-holiday. 

I’m no Scrooge. I am not anti-holiday cheer. I love silver bells! I love singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” at the top of my lungs. FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!! Love time off to be with folks I love. Cherish holiday carols, hymns, and rituals. But at this point in my life, what I most desire can’t be found in a Macy’s box or at the bottom of a glass of eggnog or on a calendar packed to the hilt with so many things to do.  December busyness, for me, does not equal meaning, and not just now, but all year long. Buying does not bring me happiness. Overwork no longer feels like a badge of honor.

Instead, this is what I want for the holidays.

I’d like it if the world actually worked towards what is central to the message and story of my faith tradition: peace on earth and goodwill towards all people. That’d be a great gift. I’d like to slow down this month, pull within spiritually, pray more, listen more for the quiet of December. Days grow darker and the nights stretch out longer and the air chills and the snow falls upon a silent night. That would be nice. What I really hope for is that after two years of being away from my circle of love at Christmas, that this year we will be able to gather.  To eat around a cozy table and to tell the same old corny jokes and revisit trustworthy traditions and remember just how much we need one another.  

I’d be thrilled if more folks could appreciate and enjoy the religious traditions celebrated right now: ancient tales of wisdom and sacred music that makes the spirit soar. Whether or not you have a faith to claim, I hope we can all find some deeper meaning in the holidays. Some spirit of hope that lasts throughout the year. A remembrance that giving is so much more important than getting.

Okay. I got it out of my system. My holiday lament. My yuletide kvetch.

Now I will try my best to relax and really enjoy the sweet and beautiful days ahead, and to do so at a sane and sober pace. And I pray and hope that you too will find your sacred and cherished place in the world, at this holy time of year.