So this is Christmas - or how I just stopped worrying and looked forward

Every other year I find myself rolling my eyes and joining the bandwagon of protests against the premature entrance of Christmas. This year I don’t mind seeing the red and green glittery displays. I actually find myself flipping to that radio station once or twice on my commute. And I’m kind of annoyed with the protests with which I used to join chorus only a year ago.

Maybe I started on the right foot. Granted, it was on Veterans’ Day – but the first radio broadcast of the winter holiday was John Lennon and Yoko Ono singing me a wish for a Happy Christmas. Maybe October was just so miserable, December means there is a solid distance between my present and that past. Or maybe, I’ve decided to embrace Christmas this year… as a reason and a means to be happy. Not one to annoy myself with stress of what I expect it to be and it isn’t.

This could very well be the consequence of living in a perpetual question. I shook up my life in July and haven’t really settled into place yet. But I’m okay with that. I’m okay living in the question, floating through a lot of different answers and possibilities… and the value of the here and now.

On a more fundamental level, I have a disdain for stuff. I have grown to appreciate the gift of someone’s time more than an object wrapped up in pretty paper. (Even better if that time is also the absence of a cell phone.) I’ve given myself that several times over this past year – through suppers and Whosdays and random collections of people I like. To talk… or just sit together and marvel at the wonder of BBC programming over a few bottles of red wine and themed snacks. I don’t crave any one thing beyond that… and I know that is a valuable gift to give to other people… so I no longer stress about giving a person a thing that will break or be forgotten and collect dust on a shelf. So take out the gifting stress and all Christmas becomes is another chance to give time with people I like… a time that I look forward to and not dread.

I am surprised to look up and see the calendar shows that at this time next week I’ll be heading home to carve up some rutabagas. Thanksgiving. Already. But… I shouldn’t be shocked that time flies. It always does. But that isn’t a bad thing. Nor is it a bad thing to see time hovering in the not so distant distance. If that hint is decorated with lights and candy canes… well, I don’t mind this year. I don’t mind anticipating time… because soon enough I will look up and marvel that even this hastened moment is gone.