Holidays. The best. The brightest. The bane. What a triangle to ring, a summoning to change… a precursor to taking up the polished, jingling harness of 2025.

For years Christmas has not been anything magical in my life. Oh, the spirits it engenders, the hopeful faces gazing into colored lights: these all nourish Hope, always a fire in need of a bellows. I’ve always had hope, it’s just not been tied to holidays so often a source of angst. Somewhere the anxiety fluttering around holidays left & these softened into hours of peace & the silence of a power-down: a parenthesis opening to slide into no-time. A day I didn’t have to be anywhere, have to show up, have to live up to anything except the contents I unpack for the day. Memories & moments, merriness & mess.

I hope I’m one who gets happy endings.

I could describe my Christmases, given the rest of my life & an unending supply of ink & paper. The only consistent gift for me is writing – it keeps on giving. It’s a responsibility & a talent I nurture as I do nothing else in my physical, spiritual, emotional life. It keeps on giving & I remain in awe of its harmonics, its melody & how these dance thru me. My words are wounded birds unable to remain in flight so, fluttering onto paper, they make you smile.

Ironic that they are not MY words. They belong to everyone, no?

I want them to belong to the worlds & take their place where they belong – memories & moments, merriness & mess.

Christmas is a scab I pick at til I bleed sometimes. But mostly I’ve gotten better at ignoring its physicality for its ephemera. The best of the Times:

Once, in a motel breakfast bar en route to New Mexico during this Season, a fella with soft white wavy hair & a soft white beard wearing a red tracksuit stood in line for pancakes. My husband du jour had to take me by the elbow when I looked at this man, my eyes starred up & I drifted across the room towards him, convinced it was Truly Santa reaching for the syrup. Husband smiled & whispered, “Carol, honey, that’s not him.“

Once, meeting the new boyfriend’s family at the holidays I answered “a pony” when asked what I wanted for the holidays. They gave me a makeup kit with fifty different colors of eye shadow & a tiny stuffed animal of a checkered horse.

Once I wore a brocade dress to midnight mass, a maroon brocade top stitched to a satin bell-skirt bottom, with patent-leather kitten heels which were too big so I slipped on a pair of white cotton athletic socks , innocently ruining any formality. My hair is parted on the left, I have spitcurls, my eyes are crossed in the photo (which I kept for a long time.) Brother Joe sits beside me in a chair holding a wrapped gift. The Christmas tree lights glitter softly behind us.

Christmas. Synonymous with hope’s annual renewal & the opportunity for unexpected gifts, unmitigated joy, unbound blessing.

May you have so much Joy you must give it all away at once!

Love,

Carol