A Puritan at heart or just misunderstood?
It is ironic how some of us let Christmas become a pretty hard time, what with the pressure to entertain, be entertaining, to make sure to remember everyone with cards, small gifts and somehow ignore the sounds of compounding interest on our over-burdened credit cards. With the papers stuffed to bursting with flyers and your favorite tv show interrupted every five minutes with 10 minutes of ads for all sorts of great things you simply must get for your loved ones (if you really do love them), it is easy to forget what the third week of January will be like after two weeks of pancakes or macaroni 
dinners. Not even the good macaroni, either. Here are a few things I like to keep in mind while tripping through the tinsel ladden, muzak filled halls of malls, business and banquets.
First of all, like my mother, there are many people who don’t like Christmas. Not because of any religious or moral objections to a Christian based monopoly of a few days on the calendar but because it has unhappy memories associated with it. While Christmas decorations and lights mark a time of joy for most of us, it serves to remind them of the loss of a close family member or some other tragic event. And, whether it is because of the long dark days of December or a need to hold on through terminal pain long enough to mark the passing of another year, this is the time a substantial number of people chose to make their exit from this mortal coil.
It’s hard to carry the burden of grief’s continuing echoes when everywhere the message is what a happy time this is for one and all. Express anything less than unbridled cheer and you run the risk of being labeled a Grinch, a Scrooge, a humbug. It is okay to complain about all the shopping and baking; how hard it is to find the time to get the house clean before the invasion of guests; even to say that just a few more days would be of help. Everyone feels that way. To say out loud that you would like to climb into bed, pull the covers over your head and stay there until January sometime, however, is not the proper, approved, festive way to complain of seasonal anxiety.
My grandfather died just after Christmas when I was seven years old. After that, mom would still clean the house and buy presents but her heart wasn’t in it. I became the driving force behind dragging dad out to buy a tree and nagging him into putting up the lights on the house. After a few years mom retreated almost completely from the whole thing. In retrospect I know it wasn’t a matter of wanting to deprive my sister and me of a normal Christmas or of hating the season itself. If we could have shifted Christmas to mid-July, I’m sure she would have been out decking the halls with the best of them.
There are also people who find themselves away from family, alone and feeling otherwise abandoned at a time when everywhere you look, the emphasis is on how wonderful it is to be with family and friends right now. A lot of these people know quite well how wonderful it would be but for whatever reason aren’t able to bask in the warmth of their family. I’m pretty sure most of them are right in there with the blanket over the head until mid-January crowd.
From experience I know there really isn’t anything you can do for either of these groups of people or for those who have other demons haunting their memories at this time of year. You can’t undo what was done or happened but you can give that less than jolly person a bit of space when they ask for it. They usually don’t want to bring their negative ‘vibes’ to the party and will join in the fun when they’re ready.
It’s also a good idea to go a little easy on yourself at this time of year. If you can’t find that perfect gift, it wasn’t so perfect after all, was it? Besides, there’s always birthdays and what-the-hell days when that certain someone will be just as happy to receive that perfect whatnot – and at considerably reduced pressure on your finances.
Insert your preferred seasonal greeting here…feel free to include any you mutter under your breath.