Holidaze

Most Decembers I am involved in a show that begins at the start of the month and races through three weekends until suddenly I find myself at Christmas, for which I have become increasingly woefully unprepared.

This year is no exception. I am in a play--a play which coincidentally is pretty much about Christmas--and we close tonight, exactly one week before Christmas. As I have spent the past two months running around at rehearsals and costume shopping and memorizing lines on top of a full-time job and rehearsing for my next outing onstage, my house looks like a clothing/junk mail/wig/fish tank/shoe bomb exploded, my cupboards are bare, and I have little hope that Saint Nicholas soon will be there since I haven't hauled out a single stocking.

I am hoping that once the curtain drops on this particular run, I will be better able to wrap my home and subsequently myself in the joys of the season. But I have my doubts. I've lost that festive feeling.

For about seven years now I have lived on my own for Christmas. And in that time I have discovered that one really does have a blue Christmas without you--whoever "you" are.

Christmas is, of course, first and foremost a religious occasion celebrating the birth of Christianity. It was designed by wise old men afeared that their new cult wouldn't get off the ground if they didn't throw the pagans a bone for winter festival rituals. So, to begin with, if you aren't into organized religion, which I am not, there is something lacking in your Xmas factor.

Christmas is also a highly profitable enterprise. What was crass and commercial in Charlie Brown's day is now quaint and retro. Christmas is even more so all about getting the right gift and stuffing those stockings, big red bows on shiny new cars in snow-driven drives, the latest in Apple products, new wardrobes, cool toys. But if you aren't topping anyone's list, regardless of how naughty or nice you've been all year, there is something missing from the proceedings. Ditto if you have checked your list and realize that while there are several gifts to be got for all your fellow elves, you haven't much in the way of feliz navidad dinero to grace others with much more than your presence in lieu of actual presents--you are missing out--remember that Mrs. Claus and Santa are kind of a package deal.

Christmas is often a great day for kiddos. This goes with the corporate culture of it, but it's grand to hear the oohs and aahs as the little nutcrackers see all the shiny new things awaiting them beneath the tannenbaum's lovely old branches. It's fun to dress 'em up too with red velvet bows and candy cane ties to parade them around the local church, which fulfills the obligations to the oh holy night-ness part of the holiday. So if you don't have children in your family tree, which I do not, you are without that certain something that makes all your Christmases bright.

Now with these three kings of Orient being in place, I could surmise that when one lacks religion, money, a partner, and children, the holidays are somewhat lukewarm. Then there are the traditions and the notion that we all live on a movie set full of rambling old houses covered in snow and aglow with lights and holly and bickering relatives. Most of us just get the bickering relatives part. Getting colder.

Even the songs are designed to take the wind right out of your seasonal sails when you're a singleton. If all I want for Christmas is "you" and I'm not getting it, how can Santa Claus come to town and take us on a sleigh ride filled with jingle bells to a destination where chestnuts are roasting on an open fire, the halls are decked with boughs of holly, and oh ho the misteltoe will trap me in cause baby it's so cold outside and the next thing we know it's baby's first Christmas away in a manger and we'll meet forever in an auld lang syne? Frozen.

I have my own Christmas traditions. They involve gifting as many of those that I can with things I hope they will love, playing Harry Connick Jr.'s Christmas albums, making ravioli for one on Christmas Eve, trimming a tree whose firry goodness will make me happy until Epiphany. I usually see my immediate family and we do presents and maybe share a meal at some point. Sometimes I even get to play with my friends late on Christmas night, or go see a movie. I dress my dog up as Santa Paws. I relax in my cheerfully decorated house and watch my favorite holiday movies and drink spiced apple wine. I hostess a New Year's Eve get-togther for those I love most dear and friends new and old. I keep Christmas with me in my own way. And it's always worked out. I end up having myself a merry little Christmas.

But this year I just feel spent over the whole ordeal, and it hasn't even begun yet. I don't feel Yulish. I feel worried about the path I am on as we flow into a new year. I feel annoyed that for seven years I have awoken with no excited anticipation of the coming celebrations. I feel sad that I view Christmas as a time of stress and fear regarding my family. I feel like I am somehow missing the whole point, and I dislike not being in the know. I'm not depressed--but I am starting to feel like some of my lights have gone out. I've got the peace and love and goodwill, but the joy has yet to surface. And maybe making the best of how things are for so long has grown staler than a dried-up fruitcake from last year. And through all my musings, I know that so many people out there have it way worse than I do this time of year--and I am grateful for what I do have and sorry for those that have less. But for the me I have to live with, I just wish this year it will be different.

Here's to hoping for a Christmas miracle.