As we start into this lovely season, a season which some of us cannot enjoy without snow, I have to pause and think about the connections I have made this year and what this time of year means. I have went back and forth over the years, even at one point refusing to have a tree, trying to find exactly what it was I wanted for my family during the holiday season. What did I want to teach them? What did I want them to remember? This is all I've got so far:
We always have a bottled Coke on Christmas Eve. It was Walt's tradition probably dating back to his childhood when Coke was a big deal and the polar bear sold you the concept of a perfect wintry Christmas. We have a friend who still insists on buying us a 6 pack for Christmas and visits Walt's grave with Coke in hand. My dad believed that Christmas Eve was about Christmas music on bad AM stations and about enjoying the lights, and if you felt any differently then you needed to sit down shut up and enjoy it anyway. My kids have their own traditions for Christmas Eve. They stay up late, snuggled together on a couch or on the floor watching George of the Jungle.
We began celebrating Chanakkuh a few years ago. It allows the kids a time to read the stories, practice the fine art of dreidle spinning, listen to some really good music and take some time to appreciate their Israeli blood. It's not a time of education but embracing. For some kids Chanakkuh will be forever part of their lives and for others it will end when they leave home. My job is to try to allow them to see all sides of the season and create their own traditions.
I like the Christmas Eve gatherings in local churches. My favorite has always been the Midnight Mass just because it is so very formal. There is a stoic beauty in watching the nuns come down the aisle and realizing the sacrifice made during this holiday.
Personally this time of year really is about the Solstice. I look at the Winter and see how easy we have it today. I think about what this time of year is supposed to be about and it makes me anxious, yet gives me hope. In the years before grocery stores and all night restaurants we would have been a people that took the month off from school and helped mom and dad prepare the home for the cold days ahead. We would have made a last ditch effort to trade firewood for a neighbor's pig. We would have boarded up the house and grabbed our blankets and waited for the cold to pass, hoping that we would survive on the crops we grew and bartered for. We would have each other. We would hold each other. We would essentially "nest". This is what the holiday is about for me. Taking my children into a warm house and holding on until spring, surviving the longest day and waiting to hear the new birds sing when the sun comes up in Spring. It is a beautiful old holiday dressed in fire, friends, and food. It is a month spent thinking about all we lost and figuring out how to do better next year. For all the commercialization of this holiday, for how we have trivialized it, I am truly ashamed. It is a time when the world is supposed to stop for a few minutes while we figure out how to be a better group of people.
No matter how you celebrate the holiday, I will always have a blanket, a Coke, and a copy of George of the Jungle for you. Because sharing is the real reason for the season. My love to you all dear friends.~Mama Shey
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