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December 2008

I used to hate Christmas. I used to dread so much about this Holy day that has evolved into the ultimate symbol of crass commercialism. I didn’t always hate Christmas. There was just a string of years there in the middle, somewhere between childhood joy and the peace of the last several years. It took me a while to resolve those ghosts of Christmas past, to close that door, to lock those buggers away. But I don’t regret those years because I learned so much from them.

I’m a survivor of Depression. Does that surprise you? I don’t think I need to share all the details about the roots, the discovery and the treatment of my own particular dance with the devil. It’s too….well frankly it’s just too depressing! What you do need to know is that I’m a poster child for this very treatable condition. Yes, we’ve all seen the drug commercials and some of us rely on those drugs to pull us out of that dark pit of hell. Some of us find relief from counseling sessions or even self-help therapy. And unfortunately a multitude of Depression sufferers treat their symptoms with the potent depressant alcohol or illegal drugs. I have a theory that most of the alcoholics and addicts I’ve known in my life started down that road by self medicating for Depression. Just a theory…

During my “I hate Christmas” years the devil would keep my dance card filled to the brim. I was a perfectionist and Christmas is a nightmare for a control freak. It’s like the Wedding Planner who sees the hyperactive ring bearer feeding the cherubic flower girl candy before their trip down the aisle. She knows this will end badly; she just doesn’t know when her flawless event will go down in flames. Christmas is filled with so many expectations. Sometimes the expectations come from others but quite often we place them upon ourselves. We get the notion that if we do Christmas well in a strictly prescribed manner that this will be the magic year when everyone’s expectations are well exceeded. Never happens.

So after several unhappy holidays that sent me plummeting down into the black hole I knew it was time for a change. During the time I was being treated for my Depression I made some major changes in the way I did Christmas. Jim and the girls and I sat down well before the holiday that first year. We “got down and got dirty” about how we all felt about the holidays. We started a long list of the activities and events that filled our days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then we started down the list with a lengthy discussion about our real feelings about each item. It was uncomfortable at first to hear how many things we were doing every single year that nobody really enjoyed. So we started by taking the unanimous NOs out of the list. Then we started talking about the Non Negotiables and found that there were several activities or events that we all wanted to keep. I remember the Christmas Tree Hunt in the mountains went on that list even though Bradi hates cold and snow. She was old enough to sit that event out and we’ve only convinced her a few times since then. Now she spends the day baking and making chili while we take her son with us. I remember that Jim wouldn’t negotiate our annual Christmas gift to our church family so we spent every Christmas Eve afternoon making luminarias and every Christmas Eve lining the sidewalks in front of the church with the welcoming light of candles. I remember how surprised we all were that NOBODY really likes turkey and that our ideas of fantastic holiday feasts included lasagna or traditional Mexican food.

Some of the events that didn’t make the cut involved other people and I remember how angry some folks became when we backed out of events that we would normally attend. Those first few years of celebrating Christmas in our own way were hard. It was hard to say “no” it was hard to say “maybe next year” but it was good to know how much happier my little family would be. I wasn’t the most popular party date in those days but I was finding that the devil didn’t feel much like dancin’ with me either. Instead of smiling my way through a stress headache I was finding myself laughing at the antics of my cross country ski team on a glorious Colorado Christmas day. I wasn’t hanging over a plate of beautifully prepared food but was packing a picnic basket in some mountain town. I wasn’t spending tons of money that I didn’t have just to keep up with a standard set by someone else’s Christmas. I was giving more of that money back to the organizations and individuals that needed it more than we did. And we were freeing up the time to give to those same organizations and people. The JOY was coming back into our Christmas.

It got easier! As the holiday rolled around each year I became more confident that my family would enjoy this time together, that we would all take away more joy than stress and that we could refine the plan if it ever stopped working for us. We still keep many of the traditions that are so meaningful for all of us and a new generation is learning the way we do Christmas in this family. It might not be the same every year but they know some things will never change, we’ll be doing things that make us all happy.

To this day you’ll find us trying out new Mexican recipes or making pizzas and building our own Sundaes. Jim and I might be out on snowshoes while Bradi opens her home as a “Sanity Stop” for her harried friends. Our first empty nest Christmas fell 20 days after we celebrated the second wedding in one year so Jim and I spent the holidays in Chicago with friends and served dinner in a homeless shelter on Christmas day. We spent another Christmas with the same friends at their Colorado cabin and after a walk in the brisk snowy air I read aloud to the group from a favorite anthology of Colorado Christmas stories.

I love Christmas, I love everything about Christmas now. I don’t dance with the devil anymore and he’s almost given up on me. He’ll wear his finest clothes and issue an invitation that is almost too hard to resist. But resist I do. Then I give thanks to the One who lifted me out of the pit. To the One who gave me a priceless gift on that very first Christmas. I save all my Christmas dances for Him.