I spent Christmas Alone this Year. That Was the Biggest Gift.
By: Julia E Hubbel
Tags: Life Lessons, Society, Culture, Life, Christmas

I spent Christmas Alone this Year. That Was the Biggest Gift.

You can’t manufacture joy, giddiness and seasonal silliness

Fake trees, originally priced at almost $450, are being ushered out the door at my local Home Goods for $35.

I looked. Walked on by. Nah.

Used to be, many moons ago, that my house was a veritable orgy of decorations. Took me two days to get everything up. And another two or three to get it all down. I rarely in all my 67 years ever had company for Christmas. Maybe three times. Who on earth was all that for other than the retail industry? Nobody came through to ooh and ahh. I did, once, when I hurt my back taking stuff down.

Said quite a few very un-jolly things, too.

I bought thousands of gifts for bewildered people who had no idea what I was trying to say. On very rare occasion, I had time with folks I cared a lot about.

For years I tried very hard to force festive feelings into my life, a false bonhomie and the appearance that all was well, all was calm, all was bright.

No, it wasn’t. Because you can’t manufacture feelings just because It’s That Time of Year.

The last nearly twenty years, I had a seasonal trip to the Pacific Northwest, where a friend’s family kindly made a place for me at their table.

That went the way of the dodo bird this year, as I did what Kristi Keller discussed in a recent piece, a friend purge. Didn’t begin that way. But it did end that way, as I sought to set boundaries with people who said things like:

Who would want to read your memoir? (the ex-friend)

and

Nobody wants to read your fucking stories (the ex-BF)

Those were a few from last decade/year. Those made up part of the highlight reel of the decade, as I counted down to January 1st. Boxes of junk weren’t the only things I left on the sidewalk. Pieces of my heart, as well, as I had to bid goodbye to longtime friends who felt it perfectly acceptable to bleed me as they wished. I have no idea why; that is their journey.

But it is mine to choose quiet time to myself rather than be fearful a beloved friend is going to carve a new hole in my heart for reasons that I have yet to comprehend.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Sometimes the end of the year is as much about getting rid of as it is getting. Nobody asks me what I got for Christmas. Those who know me best understand that this is a silly question.

The silly season is just that. As much as I suffer from temporary early giddiness when October lands, and the stores are already stuffed with Santas (and have been since late August), these days I am far happier having released my compulsive need to MAKE THE SEASON GREAT. Sometimes the season sucks. Kindly ask those families up in Sandy Hook, for example. Each of us experiences this time of year through very specific lenses. Loss, tragedy, recovery, falling in love, getting engaged, having a child, losing a child.

Or to have to worry about some freaknut attacking your church/mosque/temple/ house because he doesn’t happen to like your beliefs or language or skin color. Or your sneakers. Who knows.

Just because it’s That Time of Year is in some ways meaningless. For the trees in my yard (and to all the trees that didn’t get chopped down this year) it’s just another day. The deer could care less that I stuck another big block of compressed deer food out for the fam. It’s there. We’re hungry. Let’s eat.

Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash

I read all kinds of Medium stories from folks who felt a push to feel something they just didn’t. Well, kindly, why should they? Just because there’s extreme pressure to be happy and joyful during the one time of year (in the Northern Hemisphere at least which traditionally was the most terrifying), why should you?

Seasonal Affective Disorder is a thing for a reason. People were terrified of the short, dark nights for a reason. The cold and often lonely days around proscribed “happiest times” can make us feel like fucking losers.

Until, and unless.

Stay with me here.

This year I hadda say goodbye to my house of 14 years, and my city and state of 47. The house, now HUGE again since I have packed all my stuff away, has more dust bunnies than decorations. Shorn of all the memories, the chalkboard of its walls wiped clean of the pictures and photos and masks that had given the place my unique stamp, I was finally able to walk by Certain Places without pain.

The kitchen wall where the abusive ex first kissed me, a kiss that lasted nearly an hour and left us both exhausted and my poor feet screaming at me. I think the man had an erection for three days and that was without Viagra. Remember how it feels when you remember back when we first…?

That kind of pain.

The bedroom where…well, you know. That. Whole lotta shakin’ went on in there.

I hung a single ball from Taos from my mantle. Played Mannheim Steamroller, my one concession to the season, and the happiest. The rest of the time I worked, packed, threw away, donated, dumped and otherwise continued to clean house. March is the deadline.

Photo by Anthony Cantin on Unsplash

A few friends came by, a few had to cancel due to flu. That didn’t hurt at all. In fact, their cancellations were also a gift. I had more time to be in my home-not-home-any-more. 2019 was the first holiday season I had been in my own house. People made themselves available such as they could, in many cases because this is my last.

Dear god how grateful I have been for such a beautiful place.

Dear god how grateful I am to have a house to sell so that I have a financial nut, a nut (please forgive the pun) that I can turn into trees around my new place somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

Dear god how grateful I am to be able to finally grow a set of balls, to say to abusers and users and unkind friends, kindly, there’s the door.

I no longer care that it’s taken me 67 years. I have the rest of my life to enjoy what comes next.

I finally had time to catch up writing so very many stories that had languished (even my dedicated buddy Ann Litts could barely keep up), a flow that continues if for no other reason than I have the time.

Besides, writing stories for pay is a great excuse to avoid doing more mundane work but I digress. It’ll get done. Always does.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

In the soft light of a candle that one friend gave me for Christmas (which has, of course spawned many more, if nothing else to cover up the smell of fourteen-year-old dust), I got to just BE.

For many of us that’s the one thing that’s hardest to do. Not only in life in general, but during holidays. All of them, from Kwanzaa to Christmas, it’s nonstop.

And it’s the single most important time that you and I most need - as we traditionally acknowledge the ending of a year. Especially in this case, a decade. It’s incumbent upon us to take the time to acknowledge who and what have gone, what we have learned, what we’re grateful for, what we are sad that has passed. Honor and bless and kiss goodbye all those things that must be sent down the River of Life.

That’s what this dark night is all about. Yet most of us are so busy, or too sad, or too lonely, or overwhelmed that we cannot carve out time to care for ourselves. To notice. And by noticing, make choices. That kind of careful consideration is what also drives thoughtful redirects, otherwise called resolutions. In the dark of the solstice, we face ourselves, our fears, our heartaches. And we choose.

Given time and reflection, the gifts of a dark night, we can make better choices.

Then as we always do, the moment the days have passed their darkest, we turn our attention towards the new year, the new day, the coming spring, and all the promise that a warming sun and longer days can carry.

I had all that. All that and so very much more. Because I spent Christmas alone.

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

My new friend Margaret Kruger told me that over the course of her 67 years she had spent plenty of Christmas holidays alone. She knows how to do this. Now I do, too.

Such times are such a gift. Not to be caught up in the notion that we “should” be with family. “Should” be happy and joyful just because it’s the season.

Rather, to be with ourselves, in the deep quiet and warm places where wounds can begin to heal. In ways only we can do for ourselves.

Where the sweet smell of a Christmas candle is for us and us alone, offering the promise of healing and hope.