Why I Am No Longer a Holiday Humbug

(I asked and received full per­mis­sion from my daugh­ter to share this. I am eter­nal­ly amazed by her courage).

It was Thursday, April 9, 2021, the eve of my daughter’s six­teenth birth­day. Izzie was strug­gling might­i­ly with her men­tal health; we hadn’t yet got the cor­rect diag­no­sis or med­ica­tion. It would come soon, and with it much brighter days, but we didn’t yet know that was com­ing. Izzie was fin­ish­ing up a week at an in-patient psy­chi­atric facil­i­ty because she was, at the time, a threat to her­self. Her doc­tors had agreed to release her a day ear­ly so that she could “cel­e­brate” her sweet six­teen at home. 

While she was there, she was asked to make a list of things to look for­ward to. When you’re sui­ci­dal, even the small­est ray of hope can be a life­line. Her list con­tained two items:

• Fearless (Taylor’s Version)
• Christmas

The first item was a no-brain­er. Taylor was in the process of re-record­ing her albums to which she no longer owned the mas­ters, and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) was set to be released at mid­night that very day. Taylor tak­ing back con­trol of her cre­ative prop­er­ty had always felt empow­er­ing to Izzie and Fearless was the album she jok­ing­ly referred to as my Taylor gate­way drug. 

The sec­ond item on her list gave me pause because we were not, by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion, what you would call Christmas peo­ple. I was always one of those peo­ple that found December more jar­ring than jol­ly, rolling my eyes at the Christmas trees for sale along­side the Halloween pump­kins, decry­ing the com­pa­nies pre­ma­ture­ly shov­ing Christmas in my face to prof­it off of a hol­i­day that is sup­posed to be about the spir­it of giv­ing. I hat­ed watch­ing humans become their most depraved shop­ping selves on Black Friday, would wrin­kle my nose in dis­taste every time Mariah Carey start­ed croon­ing about all she want­ed for Christmas. 

The hol­i­days felt rushed, stress­ful, and so expen­sive. In a sea­son of cold dark­ness, when oth­er ani­mals hiber­nate, we’re expect­ed to stay up late in mer­ry-mak­ing. Since I’m not espe­cial­ly reli­gious, the whole advent thing nev­er res­onat­ed deeply. December just felt like anoth­er over-com­mer­cial­ized tra­di­tion I was oblig­at­ed to take part in. Thinking about the hand­made wrap­ping paper and car­ol­ing and sled­ding and Christmas pageants and dec­o­ra­tions and Elf on the Shelf and home­made cards and watch­ing 140 dif­fer­ent Hallmark movies left me exhaust­ed instead of excit­ed. I couldn’t wait for it to be done so that we could get to Twixmas and take a col­lec­tive breath. 

But evi­dent­ly, my Scrooge-like beliefs hadn’t been adopt­ed by my off­spring. If the hol­i­days were impor­tant enough to her to stay alive, they need­ed to be impor­tant to me too.

So I asked Izzie why she loved the hol­i­days and what we could do as a fam­i­ly to make it real­ly spe­cial. She loved wear­ing match­ing paja­mas, mak­ing cocoa, and watch­ing The Holiday by the fire. She loved guess­ing if the Hershey’s Kiss in her advent door was green, red, or sil­ver. She loved hang­ing a stock­ing for our dog, assem­bling and dec­o­rat­ing a gin­ger­bread house, bak­ing cook­ies to leave out for Santa. She loved learn­ing new car­ols on her gui­tar and find­ing out the his­to­ry behind each song. She loved the lights, the smell of the tree, the Christmas morn­ing brunch.

Her excite­ment was con­ta­gious. I had already curat­ed per­fect hol­i­days for my child and didn’t need to spend more mon­ey or plan new events. I just need­ed to soft­en my heart and be present enough to wit­ness the hol­i­day magic. 

That year changed every­thing for me, though from the out­side very lit­tle shift­ed. I sim­ply decid­ed to love the sea­son. Where I used to grouch at peo­ple who dec­o­rat­ed what I deemed too ear­ly, now I ful­ly sup­port you doing any­thing in this dark, hard world that brings you joy. I actu­al­ly spend less mon­ey on presents for my fam­i­ly so that I can afford to sur­prise oth­ers: my mail­woman, the kind wait­ress, the home­less man on North Main Street. I take time to move slow­ly through the world, wish more peo­ple Happy Holidays, pause more often to be grate­ful for all I have and send peace and well-wish­es to those who have less. 

Bring on the sea­son y’all. I’m ready to celebrate.