The Struggle to Find the Christmas Spirit

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I have a lot of outstanding Christmas memories as a kid, topped by Christmas Eves at my paternal grandparents' house. This year, however, I had a lot of trouble getting into the Christmas spirit. I can't really put my finger on a specific reason why, but it just wasn't happening for me this year.

We decorated the inside and the outside of the house, but that didn't help.

Through a local organization, we bought gifts for some local kids whose family needed a little assistance, but that didn't help.

The Mrs. took Olivia and June to the library one night, where they made a "gingerbread house" out of graham crackers, pink frosting, gumdrops, licorice, Sweet-Tarts, and M&M's, but that didn't help.

Another trip to the library for a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the release of the "Candyland" board game didn't help, either.

We drove through the Winter Wonderland Christmas lights display, we listened to Christmas music, we watched some favorite Christmas movies, we went to a community Christmas celebration, the girls met Santa a few times...and none of it helped.

All of that stuff was fun to do, and Olivia and June enjoyed all of it, but I just couldn't get into the spirit of Christmas. I couldn't even muster up the spirit to send out Christmas cards this year.

I think part of it was that 2009 just hasn't been a particularly good year for me. Nothing disastrous happened (knock on wood), but there seemed to be an endless supply of adversity to overcome this year. More so than in typical years. Now, 2009 wasn't anywhere near as bad as 1998, which was an unparallelled train wreck of a year for me, but 2009 won't go down in the history books as one of my favorite years. I have high hopes that 2010 will be better. But I came into the 2009 holiday season kind of flat to begin with.

As with every holiday season, I read lots of on-line articles this year that were chastising us all to focus on "the reason for the season." There were also a number of articles hotly debating the merits of telling others "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy holidays." Personally, I have no preference as to how someone sends me holiday greetings, but apparently some people take great offense to "Merry Christmas" not being uttered by every God-fearing human being on the face of the planet. I'm not a church-going person, but I like to think that I'm spiritual, and I have never forgotten that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. I resent other people's religious beliefs being forced upon me, especially in a fire-and-brimstone method. There are plenty of people who celebrate other spiritual holidays around this time of year, instead of or in addition to Christmas. For me, it's the sentiment behind the greeting, not the specific words themselves, that's important. Gentle reminders not to lose sight of the original reason for celebrating Christmas--especially in the midst of the bastardized, Americanized, commercialized version that Christmas has become over time--are fine for those who choose to celebrate Christmas, but the damning tone of the articles I read really pissed me off. I wanted to hunt those people down and tell them "Happy holidays" just out of spite. But that's not very Christmas spirit-y.

Ironically, all of the articles I read on the Internet that begged us to remember why we celebrate Christmas--beyond spending ourselves into mounds of debt--were surrounded by flashing, expanding, and talking advertisements to buy, buy, buy from an endless variety of merchants.

The commercialism of Christmas definitely spoils the holiday spirit for me a lot. Stores around here--and likely everywhere in the United States--had Christmas stuff on display BEFORE Halloween, cramming yuletide merchandising down my throat in the middle of October. This, at a time when my employer--like so many employers nationwide--is experiencing a significant budget problem that will trickle down to us employees in varying degrees, and countless people around me, ranging from close friends to people I supervise on probation, are losing hours, benefits, and/or their jobs. So when I'm looking for a bag of Snickers to hand out to kids in a couple of weeks while worrying about what the financial future holds for me and those I care about, I'm not real thrilled when it looks like Jolly Old Saint Nick already exploded all over the inside of Wal-Mart.

Beyond the financial aspect of buying Christmas gifts, there's a lot of pressure involved with it. The Mrs. and I have a fairly small circle of people that we buy presents for, and both of our families have adopted buy-for-only-one-adult traditions, but it's still stressful. Is our gift good enough for the recipient? How will it compare to the gift that they might give to us? Will our gift be embarrassingly puny compared to their gift? Or will our gift shame them into thinking that their gift was embarrassingly puny? That's an even worse feeling than feeling embarrassed myself. Have we forgotten anyone? What if someone unexpectedly gives us a gift, but we don't have a gift for them? Who are we expected to buy for? And what level of gift do they expect?

I understand that gifts for Olivia and June's teachers are expected, but is a plate of homemade fudge good enough? (It's really good fudge!) Or will that result in our girls being relegated to the dunce corner and cleaning the chalkboards every day for a year? We read on-line that teachers appreciate gift cards, but how much is an appropriate amount? We don't want to insult their teachers or imply that we don't appreciate what they do for our girls, but we also don't want to appear to be buying favoritism for our kids. And who else are we expected to buy for? Even our newspaper carrier left us a not-so-subtle hint that she'd like a gift. Who's next? The trash collectors? The mail carrier? The meter reader?

Then there's the matter of my probationers. Some of them obviously feel the same type of conflict about bringing me gifts. Our ethical canons prohibit us from accepting gifts of any sort, but when someone brings a plate of homemade cookies, do I insult them and refuse the gift? Or do I violate my professional ethics and accept the gift? And what exactly is the probationer trying to accomplish by bringing me a gift? Is it just benign Christmas spirit? Or is this some sort of manipulation? I also hesitate to consume homemade food prepared by probationers, since it would be an ideal way for someone to get me to ingest any variety of things that I would prefer not to ingest. Over the years, I've had a wide range of gifts offered to me by probationers, ranging anywhere from cookies to some discreet one-on-one holiday "cheer", if you catch my drift. While the gifts and offers range in their levels of awkwardness (the one-on-one activity takes the cake on the awkwardness scale), it's always uncomfortable for me to deal with what to do about a gift offered by someone I supervise on probation.

(If any of my probationers are reading this, please don't ever bring me gifts. If your intentions are good, I appreciate the thought, but I can't accept gifts.)

And don't even get me started on what level of hell I'm in, being out in the herds of people Christmas shopping.

So Christmas Eve rolled around, and I just wasn't feeling it. I worked half a day, and then we had a County-wide Christmas luncheon. It was nice to socialize with my coworkers a little bit, as well as see some other County employees that I hadn't seen in awhile. The genuinely-felt "Merry Christmas" (and "Happy holidays") exchanges I had with several people made me feel good.

That night, we went over to Chuck's house and spent the evening with his family and some other friends of ours. It was a really great evening. We had a potluck dinner, exchanged gifts for the kids (we mercifully stopped the adult gift exchange a few years ago), and had a very relaxed and fun evening surrounded by people that I love a great deal. I also played a joke on Chuck's son and nephew that made me laugh harder and longer than I've laughed in a long, long time. (Don't worry, they got their real gifts the next day.) At some point during the evening, I FINALLY started feeling the Christmas spirit.

As we put two wiped-out little girls to bed, Olivia spoke excitedly about where Santa was on the computer screen (thanks to a website tracking Santa's progress) and how close he was to our house. She went to bed with all the dolls she had gotten at Chuck's house earlier in the evening, and her unfiltered excitement was undeniable. Visions of sugarplums were dancing in her head. June's not quite old enough yet to grasp what was going to happen while she slept, but she was excited because her big sister was excited. Seeing my kids getting animated infused me with a little more Christmas spirit.

I was awakened at some ungodly hour in the morning on Christmas Day by Olivia running through the house like a banshee, shrieking, "SANTA CAME!! SANTA CAME!! SANTA CAME!!" She suffered the agony of having to wait for June to wake up before we started opening stockings and presents, but once the girls got the green light from us to tear into their bounty, it was magical. The looks on their faces, their excited shouting, their pure glee about Santa bringing them Barbie dolls, crayons, coloring books, lip gloss, and all the other treasures in their stockings and under the tree made Christmas totally worth it for me. My daughters filled my Christmas spirit tank.

Later in the day, we went to my sister's house and enjoyed a terrific day with my family. Olivia and June rough-housed with my dad, which resulted in one of the greatest photographs ever, perfectly capturing the joy in the hearts of all three of them. My daughters later enjoyed participating in a long-standing family tradition with my mom and sister: assembling puzzles. We all seemed to have a really good time, enjoying each other's company and conversation. It was a great visit. More Christmas spirit for me.

This weekend, we'll celebrate Christmas with the Mrs.'s side of the family, which I'm really looking forward to. The girls are already counting the days until they get to see the other side of their family. So am I.

Before we went to bed on Christmas night, the Mrs.--who also struggled to get in the Christmas spirit this year--and I sat down and made a list of things we want to do differently next year, in hopes of enjoying the holidays more in the future. We also listed the things we want to keep the same, so as to preserve what we already know brings us happiness.

As we made our lists, checking them twice, it finally occurred to me what I like so much about Christmas: I like being with the people I love.

And now, as a father, I like seeing my kids consumed by the mystique and joy of Christmas as they learn about societal and family holiday traditions. I remember what made Christmas so special for me as a kid, and I want my girls to have that same special feeling every year. As they get older, we'll make sure they learn about "the reason for the season," but for now, I'm content to see their souls light up because Santa filled their stockings. The real beauty of it is that, at this age anyway, they don't care what's in their stockings. What they care about is that they feel loved.

And now that I've thought about it, that's all I want for Christmas every year, too. The lights and decorations are pretty, but that's not what makes Christmas special for me. It's fun to give gifts, and I receive lots of great gifts, too, but that's not what makes Christmas special, either. What I love most about Christmas is spending time with close friends and family...and feeling loved.

By remembering to do more of that next year, I hope to experience the Christmas spirit all month long in 2010.