December Is Absolutely Here! Bring It On. Give Us Your Best.

“I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.” – Andrew Wyeth, artist

Some months of the year I actually look forward to with joy and anticipation. 

Like July, when summer really, really begins for me and much of the rest of the world in these parts. Days are hot and long, and school is out the Sox are in full red bloom.  Or April, which, granted, can tease spring and not quite be there and yet…. that first warm spring day? Windows wide open. Sweater banished to the attic. Bike retrieved from the ceiling hooks in the garage and tires pumped up for a first long ride.  

Some months I’m basically ‘meh” about. March? Make up your mind! Mud or snow? October? Okay, there’s the leaves but what else? May—yes, it is getting springier and springier every day but there’s also the pollen and the packed school and graduation calendar, so, so busy with so many end commitments. I may like May.

Or May-be not.   

But, one month really brings out my calendar confusion, and my monthly meshugana! (That’s Yiddish for CRAZY!) December, the month that just began, the month that in some ways is more jam packed than any other month of the year, with more to do and enjoy I suppose. Holidays and holy days to celebrate and gifts to buy and to give and a first snow to marvel at and then a big blowout party on the 31^st as we say goodbye to another 365-day trip around the sun.

How do you experience December? Like December, or perhaps not?

Me? December is mixed at best, this last month of the year. First there’s the darkness, the diminishing light day after day after day.  The sunlight that changes angle and seems to get grayer as the month proceeds. The big day for us, at least in terms of this banishment of light, comes on December 24^th this year, the shortest day of the year, actually one of six days in a row when daylight is rare, and the sun barely makes it up in the morning and seems to rush and hide away when the afternoon is barely over. 

On the day before Christmas in this part of the northern hemisphere, the sun will rise at 7:10 am and set at 4:19 pm, resulting in a day just nine hours and eight minutes long.  Compare that to June 17^th, 2023, when the sun will peak over the horizon at 5:06 am and not descend at dusk until 8:25 pm! This will make for a 15 hour and 19-minute day, a difference of 6 hours and eleven minutes. That’s like we get practically one bonus day in the 6^th month but barely one real long day come the 12^th month.

So yes, I’m not a fan of the lack of light come December.

Nor the weather.  Even with the climate changing, it still gets mighty chilly in these parts and today the winds are gusting to 25 mph with a temperature a little above freezing.  I knew the cold was coming but still, every year it seems to take me by surprise somehow. Like it sneaks up and taps me on the shoulder and then gives me a chilly salute. “I’M BACK!” 

The snow’s a completely different story—I love those first few storms that can show up in December, coating the trees and the lights in a white dusting, bringing a sacred “hush” to all the world, making a winter wonderland that is truly wondrous.   

Yup. December is kind of a mixed bag. 

If you work Christmas and the holidays for a living, as I have for 35 years, it is tempting to view this month as a gauntlet to be run, a marathon to be survived, or an onslaught of activity to be endured. If I am not careful and if I do not take a more balanced view of December, with all its revelries and traditions, all its religious and spiritual significance, and all its natural beauty, I can get all Scroogey. Bah humbuggy.

Yet, I still love the work and December sacred stories. I create and lead more religious services than at any other time of the year and the services I do are such a gift. Watching the children jockey for position as little costumed shepherds and angels and stars, in the church pageant. Wrapping gifts at a local charity with the middle school youth group and laughing all the way. Turning the last light off on Christmas Eve near midnight and looking at a quiet and empty sanctuary lit only by the electric candles in the windows. Peace on earth and good will to all. That night it actually seems possible. Maybe. Just maybe.

Peace.

I’ll never be a winter aficionado like my friends from Vermont. They bike with temperatures in the forties and will probably kayak until the ice floes threaten to Titanic them. They are the rare breed: folks whose favorite season is winter. In a recent survey of 1,000 Americans from all fifty states, only two states ranked winter as the most wonderful time of the year. Vermont and Alaska. Massachusetts loves summer the best.

So do I.

But if we are going to be in December, we might as well have a good time and enjoy the ride through the end of 2022.  Here’s to hot chocolate, and cheesy holiday movies. (“Love Actually” is my current favorite). Raise a glass of eggnog to…EGGNOG! Yup, I am one of those weirdos that loves this over the top, uber fattening, yellow gelatinous concoction.  Goes in my coffee every single day this month.

Bring it on December. Bring on some holy and silent nights. Raise in us all a spirit of gratitude for whenever we find ourselves in this world. Even this final month of the year. 

Come, December, come. I’m ready.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.