Christmas Is Love
It is mid-December already and we’ve only just put up our tree and decorated our home for Christmas - late by many folks’ standards. This will be our first Kingsville Christmas so I’m feeling some pressure to make it special. Decorating is such an emotional trigger; I found myself thinking a lot about Christmas memories and traditions.
Our Christmas celebration is small, quiet and a sweet mix of old and new traditions. There are fragments of our childhood Christmases which honour our heritage and some new, chosen practices. We are happy and content with our festivities, but I’ve grown accustomed to the looks of pity and compassion whenever I share our plans with outsiders. There may be just two of us, but our home is always filled with lots of laughter, favourite seasonal music (mine is The Partridge Family Christmas), delicious food and love. Lots of love. Christmas in our home is all about the love. But how did we get here?
My childhood Christmases were big, noisy, and happy family gatherings. We exchanged small gifts with each other, ate the traditional English Christmas feast, sang “Happy Birthday” to the baby Jesus while the plum pud was aflame, popped the crackers, wore the silly hats and sang carols - even at the dinner table (Nana’s rule). ’Til the age of ten, I was the youngest and as an only child, spending Christmas Day with my cousins was a very big deal - I loved every minute of those gatherings. Until I didn’t…
At the last of the big family Christmas celebrations, we numbered almost forty, and people were coming and going the entire time. It was busy, but not in the happy, fun sense of my childhood. Chaotic would be more accurate. Gift-giving had become an onerous and expensive responsibility not a privilege.
One December, late at night and feeling utterly exhausted, I remember sitting at our dining room table with piles of presents - some wrapped some still to be wrapped - gift bags, rolls of wrapping paper, tags, ribbons and bows scattered everywhere, and instead of feeling joyous, I felt nothing.
The pressure of trying to find the perfect gifts for everyone on the list, to wrap them beautifully, and to plan a Christmas week that was sure to please everyone, had left me feeling numb. No, it was worse than that, I felt utterly bleak, because in that moment I knew we’d made a bollocks out of our family’s traditional Christmas celebration. We’d completely lost the meaning of Christmas. Nana would be ashamed of us - of her three daughters and her five adult granddaughters - who’d each played a role in making a sham of the true spirit of Christmas.
Nana treasured the togetherness of Christmas. For her, the spirit of Christmas was hope, peace, goodwill towards men and, above all, love. Not huge piles of trendy, fancy, expensive presents. Love and togetherness.
The following summer, floating on noodles in our pool, Mum and I decided that we’d had enough, that we’d break with tradition. It was a very unpopular decision in the family and created a permanent rift between me and two of my cousins. Still, we knew in our hearts that this was the right decision for us. We found ourselves trying to come up with a new Christmas tradition, one that served our sensibilities and ours alone. We knew it must be unfussy and cosy and grounded in love, not presents, not busyness, not muchness. Simplicity, peace, joy and love.
There were four of us in those days. After chatting with Cam’s mum, the three of us decided to “explain to Cam” that we’d be having Christmas in Florida. ‘Though we were only to be able to enjoy two Yuletides in the Sunshine State, they were lovely, and happy and peaceful. We bought a huge poinsettia each year in lieu of a tree, attended the nighttime Santa Claus parade (on boats decorated with fairy lights), stuffed stockings for each other, made Christmas Day dinner reservations as soon as we arrived and dined in some style at a lovely waterfront restaurant. We attended the 7:00 candlelit family Christmas Eve service at The First Methodist United Church of St. Petersburg each year. Those are some of the sweetest Christmas memories for Cam and I. But then we were two…
Every year we are very warmly invited, indeed encouraged, to spend Christmas Day with friends. ‘Though generous and sweet, and ‘though we are very grateful for the offer and to have such thoughtful friends, we find it is not a day we want to spend in the midst of another family, much preferring our own wee celebration. And so it is.
This evening, with the music playing, tree lights twinkling, and our favourite Christmas treasures filling every nook and cranny, the aura of peace, goodwill towards men is undeniable.
There may be just two of us, but here in Kingsville, our home is full of laughter and love. Lots of love. Christmas in our home is all about the love, and I hope the same is true for you.
’Til next time, y’all…