It is telling that I am writing this post for a December publish (it’s already the week of Thanksgiving). And, I am still so focused on being IN autumn, enjoying Halloween, watching the trees blaze into color and fall, celebrating the American holiday of Thanksgiving, planning awesome meals with branches of family and friends- that I don’t even want to start to think about Christmas music, and people putting up trees so early they’ll be dead by Christmas Eve, or carols assaulting me in stores while I’m shopping for candy and costumes, not yet gifts or stocking stuffers.
And I want to make the case to you to do the same, for a bunch of different reasons. The groundwork for my thoughts about these times was established when I was very young, and inside the cycles of the Catholic Church’s Liturgical Year. In that tradition, the concept that Advent and Lent were their own seasons of preparing that came with their own rituals (so you couldn’t just jump into Christmas or Easter) you spent time preparing and often in reflection, before you got to the big day and the transition to celebration- well, all those things made a deep sort of sense to me, even as a child. These days, my relationship to the religion of my youth is very different. I couldn’t say I’m a practicing Catholic, but I still have a Catholic sensibility, I don’t believe the stories, not as they are taught, but I recognize and value the TRUTHS. Let’s just say I’m a lot more accepting of Catholicism than the Catholic Church would likely be of me, and I definitely don’t think any organized religion or spiritual tradition has a corner on our understanding of God, the Universe, the redemption of humankind, or the endless ineffable. (Which reminds me, I have a two books everyone should read.) But, I digress…
Back to the main point I would like to make to you this (or any other) season. We live in a cyclical world, on so very many levels. The cultural touchstones we have developed over what is likely thousands of years, new heavenly religions laying their claim over festivals that rose out of older man’s desire to make sense and structure of his surroundings. Many of those earliest echoes are tied to the natural cycles inflicted upon us by the extraordinary dance our Earth does: spinning on her own toes every 24 hours- a satellite moon in tow giving us a coy wink every 28 days, and the grand circuit we make around the sun every 365, which here in the Northeastern United States is responsible for a glorious turn of four seasonal changes that I would argue is unsurpassed in majesty anywhere on this earth.
All this is to say, not everyday is Christmas, just like not every season is spring. But, every day and season has its purpose, and life is made and loved and enjoyed in those quiet moments and contrasts between. Stay in the moment you are in. BE in the moment you are in. You are allowed to look forward and back a bit, good things can often be made better with a little anticipation or reminiscing. Not too much. We wonder why the world seems to spin past in a blink, but it’s no surprise you missed it when you were so busy hunched over your phone trying to figure out which sale to hit on black Friday that you didn’t pause to have a quiet conversation with your grandmother over Turkey and cranberry sauce. She might not be there to talk to at Christmas, and trust me, you’ll miss her more than another oversized TV.
So much of our sense of time in these modern times is driven by marketing. I wonder how many of us notice? Because, there are bunches of people who are constantly trying to manufacture a reason for you to buy their things. And so, the world around us, jumps, not even from holiday to holiday, but from shopping season to shopping season, with no pause for us to BE in the between. Right now it’s Christmas, and after Christmas it’ll be Valentine’s Day, and after Valentine’s Day, St. Pat’s or Easter, and then Summer, Summer, Summer! With Memorial Day and Fourth of July thrown in there (with rarely a nod to the actual meaning of Memorial Day. Hint: It’s not about the beginning of grilling season.) Then it’s Back to School before some kids have received their final report cards, and we can’t get past the first day of school before Halloween costumes are on shelves, and this year there were Christmas trees and Carols playing in the stores before the plastic masks and snack sized candy were on sale.
All this is to say- try to sometimes ignore the people selling you something, always selling you something. They want something from you, and it’s not your deep fulfillment and quiet contentment watching some football with your family after a meal meant to inspire gratitude at the abundance with which the Earth and our fellow humans support us. We can recon with the less than ideal origins (understatement) of the American Thanksgiving Holiday and then make it a truer and more encompassing prayer of Thanks.
Stop letting a sale hurtle you forward through time months at a clip. Nobody is going to let your rest when you get there, but simply hurtle you forward again, until you are dizzy and tired and have no idea how you missed everything in between. Marketers need to convince you they have something you need. All the time. (Trust me, I know, this website exists because I am selling a service. And man, is it tough to make it work in a way that doesn’t make me feel smarmy!) Reject the anxiety of scarcity and unpreparedness and the deeply dysfunctional idea that the newest trappings are what make the holiday, the moment, or your life.
You already have everything you need to make this moment meaningful. Enjoy it. And your holiday will be awesome when it arrives.
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