“Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year – and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority.”― W.J. Cameron
It’s just beginning to snow as I’m typing this but not much is expected. Snow has become one of those things that will always remind me of the childhood snow day complete with the pandemonium in feety pajamas. The older I get and the fewer places I need to be makes snow a seasonal highlight I can enjoy.
Christmas’ voice of strong authority has put me in my place many times especially when the annual nostalgic pity party threatens to ride me piggy back into the season. The one that always rears its ugly head when I’m decorating my mantle but not a tree. The one that laments the number of gifts I no longer conjure up for the people who are no longer in my life. The one that finds me making cookies mostly by myself.
The truth is my home always looks like Christmas so the mantle is quite enough, those people who are gone from my life are the people who needed to be gone from my life, the ones who demanded gifts instead of time spent. They could never hear the bell…and the cookies, the cookies bring me delight and lament for when I’m gone they’ll be gone. These are the truths of the season that need to be embraced and reconciled year after year. “The knowing is easy. It’s the doing that gives us trouble.” ― Vannetta Chapman, A Simple Amish Christmas
Even with all that, I BELIEVE, I hear the bell (…because Thomas…). So as part of the season I embrace the truths, enjoy the ordinary moments that present themselves in the form of winter walks with Toti Nonna. I burrow into my home and reconcile the pity and lament up the chimney on the winter solstice. Then I enjoy the favorite season of introverts as each day begins to get just a bit longer.
“At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.”
― Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express
