Christmas & Cold Turkey
Ever since I started working for a package delivery company, the weeks leading up to Christmas tend to fly by without much notice. The days are long, but they go by quickly if that makes any sense. The nights are lazy and pretty much involve eating and sleeping. At some point, I have to remind myself there is Christmas shopping to be done. And while I dread planning which night or weekend that I will finally take the plunge into consumer madness, I love it when I’m there. As a spoiled only child growing up, I never thought I’d reach the point where I like buying presents more than I like receiving them. But I have, and despite the greatest efforts of the crowds and the crankies to draw me into their collective unhappiness, I can’t get enough.
Eventually, though, my body buckles under the weight of bags and bags of gifts. The little black Mitsubishi sleigh that takes me from shop to shop can’t get me home fast enough. My legs grow weary and my feet drag me into the house as my arms flail and the bags crash to the floor. My tired body yields to a yearning spirit that longs for something more than the sound of swiping plastic and unsolicited sales pitches. And I think to myself that all I want is a few moments of silence – that’s all I need.
The silence is great for a little while, but I quickly find out that I’m ready for family, for laughs and voices and conversations all around me. Only recently have I realized that it’s not even giving gifts that really excites me about Christmas anymore. Christmas, and the joy I feel around Christmas, is about celebration and the community of people, family and friends and strangers, that you celebrate with. Growing up an only child, I’ve always been very capable of entertaining myself but there is something so refreshing about being surrounded a community of joy.
The tough part about Christmas, especially these days, is that it sneaks up on me. And then all at once it’s here and everything is warm and fun and then it’s gone again. I have just enough time to be reacquainted and rejuvenated and then it stops, cold turkey. I know that the abbreviated time just helps me appreciate it more but I just wish our lives weren’t filled with such paradoxes.