Charlie Brown Christmas

It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas at the Weber’s. In the beloved 1965 animated classic, Charlie Brown can’t seem to find his Christmas spirit despite the decorations and holiday falderal around him. It’s not until his friend Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas that Charlie Brown’s blues lift and he can celebrate the season with his friends. You can call me Charlie.

 This time last year our house was decked out like a Better Homes and Gardens magazine holiday layout. From the mantle to the bay window to the stair rail, I had found a way to decorate our new home. It was our first Christmas in this house and for the first time, we had a layout that allowed us to host our employees, students and contractors for a small holiday gathering. With tremendous support from the hubby, we had a lovely and seemingly peaceful place to spend the holiday.

But I didn’t feel peaceful. The ability to host our small team followed by a few family and friends over the holidays was wonderful. But I was exhausted. I was still deep in post concussion recovery, trying to get back to work part time and trying to resume every aspect of my “old life” to the maximum extent. Others did not expect this from me; it was what I wanted for myself. Or so I thought. I paid the toll for overdoing it for weeks afterward with cognitive setbacks and physical exhaustion.

How much can change in one year? This year, just the thought of decorating is beyond comprehension. Yes, 2020 is a dumpster fire of a year. But lots of folks have seized on the opportunity to decorate early, embracing making their home into a holiday wonderland for cozying up with Hanukah, Christmas, Solstice and Santa. I love seeing the photos of our friends embracing the holidays. Not us. Not this year. It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas at our house. Call it exhaustion, grief, depression, overwhelm, brain injury, knowing the limits of my energy or just plain honest. And you know what? I am 100% okay with that.

Last week, I tried to convince myself that we should at least put up the tree. It would be beautiful and simple with just the white lights, no decorations needed. We could add the tree skirt quilted by my in-laws and a wreath on the front door. If we did just those things and displayed our holiday cards it would not be too much work and would add just enough sparkle to feel some Christmas enchantment. Then I remembered that we were so overwhelmed last year that it took until July to get the tree down. Those beautiful decorations we put up? It took me until Covid to get the last of them down, let alone organized, which still has not happened.

 What I want this Christmas is peace. Not just in my home, but in my heart, in my body, in my brain. I want calm, heart centered, thoughtful, reflective, soul nourishing peace. More than ever, I look so forward to the Christmas Eve service at church this year. Always a wonderful community experience, this year, just thinking about it, I can already feel my body relaxing and my heart opening as my spirit softens from the starching stress of 2020. Even virtually, the service will be good for my soul. This year, it’s not about decorations, creating a holiday wonderland and hosting. It’s about the deeper themes of celebration: caring for our fellow man, gratitude for what we have, quality time with my partner,  and connecting with our family and friends in the ways pandemic allows. Actually, it always was. I just got lost. This year I’m also making it about reclaiming the extinct holiday ritual for women across our nation: caring for my own well being over the holidays.

There are many things I will miss about the holidays this year: activities we look forward to all year long, traditions and time with people we love. What I won’t miss this Christmas: the heart pounding adrenaline forcing me to make the most of every single second from the week before Thanksgiving to December 25 in a breathless mad dash to decorate, buy and wrap the perfect gifts, make our home into a magical holiday wonderland, and pull together meals and gatherings and m manage complicated holiday family dynamics as I try to make Christmas perfect.

I love the holiday season. I love finding the right gifts, creating pretty packages for friends and family, and making things for people we love. I am doing some of that, but in a much more limited way. This year our stove has not been working since late September. Thanks to pandemic we could not get the parts needed to fix it and are hopeful about the now scheduled December 23 installation. We have been living with crock and instapot, toaster oven and hot plate. There will be no caramel and hard candy making for gifts this year. There will be no home baked goods to deliver to friends or ship across the country. I think the CDC would prefer we refrain from that anyway.

Now I can’t say that if a Christmas elf or holiday sprite turned up and offered to clean the house and deck our halls that I wouldn’t take them up on it. But we would have to agree that they would be back on January 2 to put the Christmas Pandora back in the box. I am missing having a holiday environment, but what I am enjoying more this year is working within the limits of my cognitive, physical and emotional energy. The year 2020 has changed all the rules and I am embracing it for this one, blue Christmas.

This year we are making meaning out of the small things, creating new rituals and being more present as we consider presents. Even more than usual, we have focused on buying gifts from local purveyors. We are donating to folks who need an extra boost this year in particular. We will enjoy the soft glow of LED candles on timers that fill the kitchen bay windows. I put them out for last Christmas, but enjoyed them so much that I have kept them all year. Their soft and gentle lights quiet my mind and spirit in the dark of winter than now comes too early in the evening. We will light the fireplace, drink hot cocoa and hot tea. We will eat healthy food. We will sit under blankets we have made and watch holiday shows. We will put a sweet Christmas bandana on our chonky black and white Muppet mitted kitty. We will put up one decoration: a fresh evergreen wreath with pine cones and holiday ribbon made by a local grower on our front door. Instead of a tree and parties, we will cuddle up and make a new ritual of turning off electronics while quietly opening the love filled stack of holiday cards from friends and family around the country. We will savor the notes and letters, maybe make a few phone calls to say hello, thank you, we love you.

As I reflect this year on Christmas’s past, I believe that for many years, I have been so focused on the doing of Christmas that I have missed the best of it. The focus this year is, for me, is right where it needs to be; celebrating beliefs, gratitude for people in our lives, giving in all the ways we can. Turns out, pandemic or not, that a Charlie Brown Christmas really might be the best Christmas of all.