I always get a bit melancholy at this time of year. Melancholy, for those born in this century, is a feeling of unexplained sadness. The word comes from the Latin phrase meaning “black bile,” an excess of which was once believed to cause depression. I don’t know about all that, but I do know the melancholia I feel on this shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, will end eventually. When the days start getting longer and the tiny crocuses peek their heads up through the snow, Melancholy will start to dissolve and Spring Fever will take over. What I am describing of course is the winter blues. Medical professionals might call it Seasonal Affective Disorder or, aptly, SAD. But since I know that this too shall pass, I call my mood Optimistic Melancholia.
Optimistic Melancholia usually arrives around the time we switch back to Central Standard Time after having enjoyed six months of Daylight Savings. Then, the holidays start. For my family, it is Thanksgiving and Christmas. These two holidays are so full of traditions and memories surrounding my parents and grandparents that their absence is felt more strongly now than any other time of year. I miss them so much my chest hurts from suppressed sobs. My children and grandchildren are in another state altogether, so the planning and celebrations leading up to Christmas cannot really be shared with them.
I think about Decembers full of children’s Christmas pageants at church and school Winter concerts. There were handwritten wish lists to consider (and stress about), travel plans back to the homeplace to make, parties to attend, and decorations to put up.
Christmas is especially hard on mothers, whose main focus is to make warm memories for the children that they can take with them into adulthood. This is a time when, regardless of our role in orchestrating the holiday, we too believe in Santa Claus. We wake up December 26, exhausted beyond description but, hopefully, satisfied that we had done our duty and our children will remember this Christmas forever. Oh sure, there were moments… like when the dressing failed or the batteries weren’t included in the most important gift and those found in the junk drawer were dead, but the glitches usually fade from our memory banks over time.
Christmas is so full of tradition that even in 2024, greeting cards show rosy-cheeked couples riding in horse drawn sleighs, carol singers with candles and hymnals, and tin soldiers, toy drums and carousel horses around Christmas trees. I smile thinking how my grandchildren would react if they woke Christmas morning to find wooden toys around the tree and their stockings full of oranges, nuts and peppermint sticks instead of bottles of body spray, jewelry and gift cards to their favorite store. Yet, I have never seen a Christmas card with joyful children holding video consoles and cell phones.
Isn’t it strange how we hold onto Christmas images that we may never have experienced in real life? I know my children would have asked why I put fruit in their stockings when we had all the fruit they wanted in the kitchen. While candy canes were present, I don’t recall getting actual food in my stocking. However, my mother shared with me that fruits, nuts, and peppermint was often all they received for Christmas. Her best Christmas was when she and her little sister got sawdust dolls. More importantly, it was the year her mother, my Grandma Exie, received the first Christmas gift of her life. Mom let out a tearful sob, as she described how Grandma wept over that small box of chocolates from Grandpa.
Charles and I don’t exchange Christmas gifts with each other. Neither of us need anything and our list of wants is pretty short, too. Instead we plan for a trip in the New Year. Normally, we would put up our Christmas tree and our outdoor Christmas lights on the house and fence Thanksgiving weekend, but we didn’t. I am not sure why. While the outdoor lights are still in the boxes as neither of us have any interest in getting out on ladders in this wind and cold, the tree finally went up December 20. The stockings are hung on the mantel but they are just for show.
We give our grandkids experiences instead of presents, which just require a card telling what this year’s experiences will be. We will fly to see the kids Christmas Day, landing in the afternoon to allow them to have their morning with their children. All of this is designed to make things easier, less hectic, and to provide memories in the New Year instead of more (often unneeded) stuff on December 25. It’s a good plan, a wise decision, but it isn’t like Christmas Past where the joyous fun and traditions were funded by maxed out credit cards we would pay for next year.
But, I really do miss Christmas Past and that’s probably where the Melancholy comes from. Because like the carousel horses without a purpose, the toy drums that have been replaced by full percussion set ups, the tin soldiers with nothing to guard, Christmas the way I remember it has become obsolete. Nobody goes caroling anymore, we sit in our cars and drive through commercially produced Christmas light displays. Has anyone alive ever actually experienced visions of sugarplums dancing in their head, let alone eaten one?
Most of the world seems busier than ever. Black Friday starts after Halloween in order to give us more time to think of additional things to buy. Young mothers seem even more stressed out. I want to tell them to relax, but also remember being them, trying to make everything perfect for the kids. Yesterday, the line of cars into the shopping center was backed up two stoplights. I was thankful to be going home and not shopping. It is so strange to appreciate not having to do something and missing that very thing at the same time.
Today my brother and sister-in-law stopped by after breakfast. They had remembered that I liked Christmas cactus and have fond memories of the one that was always present at Grandma’s house. So, they bought a hanging Christmas cactus basket from the local garden center and delivered it to me. It was completely unexpected but thoughtful and appreciated. In that moment, my melancholy lifted and I wouldn’t have been happier if they had picked something expensive and had it wrapped in gold foil. It shows that they know me. What a nice Christmas Present.
Little things, fleeting memories, and iconic treasures like my Christmas cactus bring the traditions of Christmas Past back to me. And that will have to do.
