Year after year, the tinsel shines a bit tawdrier. The cheer, more and
more forced. Shopping season kicks off right after Halloween, and
fa-la-la's have run their course by the end of November. Because
Christmas is the Grand Old Orgy of American consumerism, putting
us all in a pressure cooker of frantic, last minute purchases and
manipulative sentimentality. In short, it's lost its meaning,
at least for me. No awestruck wonder. No special star.

Holidays with the family bring memories of rushing about, stuffing
packages into the trunks of cars, and children with drunken, greedy
looks of Gimme! Gimme! Paper flying everywhere, overheated rooms
and tubs of noise, noise, noise. Too much food, too much color, too much
everything. This year, I want to take my Christmas slow and quiet.

I want to look at snow
and see its silence.

I want to walk in it, not see it glittery on cards I'll just stay up too late
in writing. I'm tired of crankiness, and the dread that sets in right
around Thanksgiving. I want to feel the solemnness of the season not the
cheer, for who can think of a baby born into a world that will nail him to
a cross and simply jubilate?--I cannot see the manger
without the crown of thorns.

That is why Christmas music in minor key, the medieval music of the monks
and monasteries, the chanting B Minor music always speaks to me the truest.
We are a sorry lot, we've always been- yet every year, we troop out garish
lights and silly elves and tell our fantasies and pretend it isn't so. We
let Wall Street and the Dow dictate 'when' and 'how' we'll show our love,
when every day in small but spontaneous ways we do it best.

I'm not bah-humbugging; I'm simply getting off the ride, tearing my ticket
in half and walking home- alone. Think on the simple stars and hear my
heart- and maybe find some magic I cannot buy at Walmart, two for the
price of one. I'll let Christmas whirl around me; be a stone in the creek,
the social currents rushing madly past. My family disappointed, but
that's alright. They will survive a Karen-less yule, and I will rediscover
something I haven't had since childhood: time- and the wonder to fill it.
Some breathing room, a quiet home, the softer, minor key music that
makes it real for me. Like when I was little
and could talk to Baby Jesus.

.....................................
Peace on earth, goodwill to men~
...................ruffledpanties