I tried to give Christmas the slip, but the spirit caught me
Back when I had 20/20 vision, the year 2020 was very far away. Christmas then was still all about shopping for stuff and getting stuff.
In recent years, I have weaned off the commercial, taking homemade soup to each family household instead. This year, I didn’t make it to the land of my childhood. I had no time off left and chose not to spend four hours in a rental car getting there and back on Christmas Day.
I volunteered to work instead. Holiday pay is a little bump.
At the approach of Christmas Day, I anticipated it with resignation. When people asked, “Are you ready for Christmas?” weeks ahead of time, I’d smile and say, “Sure.” To have said “I’ve opted out” would have smudged the good cheer they meant to share.
But my heart hasn’t been in it for years. I am not a practicing Christian, and I have become weary of the inescapable loop of jingles and carols in every venue, from drugstores to restaurants, from before Thanksgiving.
This year, I told my family not to get me anything, that I would not be getting gifts for them, that I wasn’t “doing” Christmas. That would be convenient, seeing as how I would be staying in Pittsburgh.
But in the past few weeks, the Christmas spirit infected me in unexpected ways, from unexpected sources.
A friend with whom I share season tickets to Pirates games texted to see if I would meet her at our neighborhood pub: “My treat,” she wrote. I had just opted out of my half of the ticket cost, part of my plan to cut all luxury spending.
A week later, when she made the same offer, her treat at the pub, I felt foolish for crying poor. I am not poor, but I am anxious about paying off my mortgage on a stagnant income.
“I love you, and I want to help you,” she said.
The next Sunday, another friend picked me up for yoga class, as she usually does. We got there to find therapeutic massage balls in a basket. The teacher had brought them in case anyone wanted to buy a pair.
“Thirteen dollars,” she said. My friend bought two pairs and, as I contemplated spending $13, she
handed me one of her pairs and said, “Merry Christmas.”
At home, I got the urge to bake cookies, something I hadn’t done in about 20 years. I made three kinds in big batches, wrapped them in decorative paper and found some used gift bags from family Christmases past.
As I delivered the cookies around the neighborhood, I felt a lightness in my step. I was “doing” Christmas, but it felt spontaneous and authentic, in defiance of the tyranny of the stress routine.
I was seized by the desire to send cards to the dozen or so friends who had sent me cards from around the country. I had unused cards from years past. The pictures of their families, their now-grown children, in some cases grandchildren, had arrived throughout the month, and I had glanced at them. I studied them this time.
I thought, these are my friends. We used to hang together, party together, work together, even live together. They are still sending me Christmas cards. They are keeping me updated on their lives. That’s a gift, and I was just realizing it.
A few days before Christmas, two friends who live in New Jersey called. They were spending Christmas with their son who lives in Pittsburgh and wanted me to join them for Christmas Eve dinner.
I said, “Yes, but it needs to be somewhere near my house.”
They suggested: How about your house? We will bring everything to you.
I was thrilled that I would see them. I got the table ready and plugged in the chili lights. Across the street, neighbors were singing carols. I barged out the door and joined them in “Jingle Bells,” a song I thought I never needed to hear again.
Then my friends arrived, and it wasn’t just with the son who lives in Pittsburgh but also the one who lives near Seattle.
That warmth you’re supposed to feel when family comes to the door on Christmas Eve was the warmth I felt on the arrival of friends bearing the gift of their company and dinner — a Crock-Pot full of chili, condiments, a big salad, cheesecake and wine.
Family, we all might agree, is number one. I adore mine, every single member, and I am grateful they gave me a pass this year, with grace: “We’ll miss you,” they wrote in emails and cards, “but we understand.”
As 2019 ends, I hope that my vision in 2020 is influenced both by my family’s grace and the glow that this Christmas has cast upon me unbidden, thanks to givers of gifts unexpected.