WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY
Whatever your faith or experience, you can make the best of this time of year
The call arrived a couple of weeks ago. One of my dearest friends, already busy with a full-time job and two active teenagers, asked if I could assist in her Christmas 2017 mission: Collect gifts for not one, not two, but several families — all of them newcomers to Canada.
She called the right person. If one of my relatives or friends is reading this, you already know about my penchant/ hobby/ obsession for gifting. For the past two decades or more, in fact, a section of my basement has been devoted to the gift closet.
While I love to give presents for any occasion, Christmas is the time of year where I go whole hog, and give — sometimes, even force upon — presents for family, friends and the people who provide hair cutting or other services for me throughout the year.
Yes, I know: some people say Christmas isn’t such a big deal anymore. Sure, we continue to mark each passing year as A.D., as in “after death” of the man billions of people around the world consider the Son of God, better known as Jesus Christ.
While we live in a country that is becoming more culturally diverse with each passing year, the holiday marking Jesus’ birth is still the biggest of all.
Many of us prepare for it weeks ahead of time, feeling alternately anticipatory and angst-ridden; many of us travel great distances to be with family, while others spend days baking, wrapping, decorating and primping our homes for the onslaught of visitors throughout the festive season.
Some people, however, have become increasingly weary of the evolution of Christmas over the past century or so, from what was a time of religious observance to a crassly commercial event that imbues guilt and stress rather than glad tidings.
The year 2017 hasn’t helped. A prolonged economic downturn has left our city reeling for the past couple of years. And, the turbulence and turmoil of the Trump administration in the United States has sent shock waves far beyond its borders, with the daily barrage of uncivil discourse exacerbated by threat of a nuclear showdown with North Korea.
My own personal history with Christmas is a complicated one. As a child raised Catholic, I grew up in an environment that both celebrated the birth of Christ and marked the holiday with shortbread cookies, Christmas lights and wrapped presents under the tree. The holidays were a flurry of visits to relatives all over town, big turkey dinners and much frivolity with my four siblings.
In 1974 and for a good decade after, however, Christmas was hardly acknowledged in our home. That Christmas Eve, I woke to the news that one of my brothers had died in a snowmobile accident. Imagine the trauma of opening a wrapped gift, from the dead loved one you had spoken to only hours earlier and then trying to get through the rest of the holidays. On that day, at age 13, my childhood ended.
For years after, my heartbroken parents could barely tolerate even the sight of a tinsel-covered Christmas tree. It would take years for my sisters and I to convince my parents to set up their Nativity display on the dining room buffet, let alone decorate another tree. But we forged on, and by the time I was in my early twenties, they were willing to mark the occasion, even if it was a shadow of the celebration we had in those early years.
In September of 1990, we lost another cherished loved one. An impaired driver killed my beloved sister Shelley. The mere sight of those multi-coloured lights, along with the sounds of holiday music just weeks later, was nothing short of torturous to a heart I thought was beyond repair.
Time and experience — not to mention the passing of elders, friends and warm acquaintances — have helped me to shape my own meaning of Christmas. I see it as a Thanksgiving of sorts; a time before the start of another new year, to reflect upon all the things that are worthy of gratitude. As a journalist who recently reached the milestone of 2,500 bylines, my nearly 20-year career at the Herald has allowed me to tell some of the most compelling, inspiring stories.
While I have seen the worst of humanity up close, I’ve also been afforded a front-row seat to its best. I’ve met, on a regular basis, so-called ordinary people who have transformed tragedy into triumph and misfortune into community service.
As well, for the past 20 years, I’ve been a contributor to the Calgary Herald Christmas Fund. In each and every one of those stories about the charities benefiting from the annual fundraiser, I’ve had the good fortune to meet passionate frontline workers and volunteers, and more than a few people whose lives have been transformed by the generosity of their fellow citizens.
At Christmas time, then, I look back on those I’ve met over the years. They have taught me that I don’t have the market on pain and loss and that while none of us know what’s in store for us, we have the power to take ugliness and turn it into a thing of beauty.
The years will leave none of us unscathed — and none of us are getting out of this alive. Some call those expressions hackneyed; live long enough and you’ll know they’re more tried and true.
My decision to embrace the season, rather than turn my back, has been decades in the making. Whatever your faith or life experience, you can make the best of this time of year by looking outside of yourself, whether that is to donate money to the lessfortunate, help out a stranger, reach out to someone in pain, or re-connect with a loved one.
The saying that it’s better to give than receive is an old one, but still rings true.
This holiday season, I’ll look back with gratitude on all the people who shared with me their personal stories and who showed courage, kindness and hope when all seemed lost.
I’ll also smile at the thought of the refugee kids opening the gifts I donated, thankful that I could help out in a small way. And, I’ll look towards the new year with the hope of doing it all over again in 2018.
Merry Christmas, everyone.