I love Christmas. I think about it all year, plan menus in October, start knitting socks in August, sometimes in May. My heart beats a little faster when I turn the calendar from November to December—it’s the all-star season, the one that overshadows all the rest. But, I wonder. Is it my family’s favorite season?
Truth be told, I take it a little, umm, seriously. I have an image in my head of how it should go, and then I proceed to implement—some might say enforce—that vision. I want to work on projects together, but then I get frustrated if the girls have less enthusiasm or wander away before we are done. I plan to do more than I can ever get done, get increasingly sleep deprived, and end up snappish and fried by mid-December. I have cried the night of December 23 every year for, say, the last 20.
So, here it is—December 1—the day I wait for all year. I wonder, am I destined to spend the month in a stew of stress and frustration leavened with laughter and fellowship or can I reverse the proportions? Can I give a little on my image of what Christmas should be even though I’ve been thinking about it since last February? Can I make room to sit on the couch with David and the girls to look at the tree or to skip the peppermint bark if we run out of time? Can we walk through the neighborhood, marveling at the brightness of our neighbors’ kitchens and be warmed by the light pulsing into the mid-winter dark?
Can I choose joy and surprise and miracle? Can I be like Thomas Hardy beholding his “Darkling Thrush”:
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
All I can say is, I’ll try.
