I love Christmas. December is my favorite month and Christmas is my favorite holiday. Without family in Illinois, there have been years when I spent Christmas Day all alone, creating my own private holiday and still loved it. It didn’t matter what I did on Christmas because I knew I was sharing an emotional experience of happiness with billions of others around the world. Of course not everyone observes Christmas and many who do don’t enjoy it at all, but that still leaves billions around the planet who share this celebration. I decorate my apartment the day after Thanksgiving and gaze at my Christmas tree until February. I host a Christmas party, wear goofy Christmas clothing and jewelry, and feel some level of happiness all December long.
Then there was December 2020. The coronavirus and our response to it stripped me of that feeling of sharing joy with countless others. I knew people around the world were not having the gatherings and celebrations they wanted. Traditions were put on hold and big splashy events didn’t happen. I mostly spent the month by myself, in my apartment, not feeling happy or excited at all. I was so hurt by the absence of my favorite holiday activities that I couldn’t put up my tree. Why decorate when no one was coming over? Looking at decorations made me feel lonelier than ever.
Of course in December 2020 it felt like people took the energy they would have put into getting together with others and poured it into decorating. Starting in November more trees than ever twinkled through front windows. People strung their front porches with cheerful garlands, apartment-dwellers hung wreaths on our doors and front lawns glittered with figures in the shape of deer, penugins and Santa himself.
The core of Christmas for me is connection through celebration
It didn’t do much for me. I’d heard people say in years past, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas” and thought they were completely stupid-crazy, but I finally understood. Knowing I wasn’t going to get any people-time killed Christmas for me. Or maybe it was knowing that the worldwide celebration itself was cancelled.
I think what matters the most to me on Christmas Day is feeling connection with others through celebration. That is the quintessential core of Christmas for me: connection through celebration. On December 25th I love knowing people everywhere are gathering and celebrating and loving and laughing (no, not all of them, obviously, but enough for it to be a phenomenon). In 2020 I did not feel that connection through celebration. Too many of us had subdued, dim, substitute versions of the Christmas we wanted. Too many of us were alone.
After weeks of trying to make the best of things, on my quiet Christmas 2020 morning I said out loud, “This is wrong.” Then I said it louder. Then I screamed it. I wept and repeated the words over and over, punching pillows and feeling glad my apartment building was mostly empty for the holiday. 2020 killed my Christmas spirit. I didn’t think that was possible after 55 years of Christmas being my favorite, but 2020 killed it.
So I counted on Christmas 2021 to bring back my spirit. It hasn’t. Last year, in the absence of my usual red-and-green-colored glasses with stars in my eyes, I saw that Christmas is just an ugly cash grab. That was all Christmas was for me last year and I’m horrified to find that it still looks that way to me. Is my love of Christmas not coming back? Did 2020 permanently break me?
I’m extremely grateful for the events and traditions that returned this month. I’ve spent time with people in restaurants and bars like I couldn’t last year. I even had a Christmas party last night with a few people. It wasn’t on the scale as parties I’ve thrown in past Decembers, but it was nice.
But the depression symptoms that returned after Thanksgiving haven’t let up. I had expectations of this Christmas being at least close to pre-2020 Christmases and I’m painfully disappointed that it’s not. I wonder if I’ve gone through some rite of passage of seeing the commercial truth of Christmas so that I can’t enjoy Christmas again. I used to get so much joy from December. If my all-December-long joy doesn’t return, where do I get my joy?
Update 12/20/21: A friend pointed out that many of those people all over the world who count on Christmas to bring them happiness are also disappointed. For all the “together again” messaging, we’re nowhere near back to normal. Anyone who’s sensitive to what others are feeling are probably having a hard time this season. This view of it makes me feel better because maybe it’s not that my Christmas spirit gone. Maybe it’s more pandemic fallout that will correct when we can all have the gatherings we want…in 2024?
