The Soul of Christmas

It’s two weeks before Thanksgiving as I write this. Walking in town yesterday, I was met by store windows chock full of Christmas. Displays of faux snow and baubles, decorations, and gifts sat in strange juxtaposition with the unusual, t-shirt-warm weather. It was unsettling.

I’m not in sync with this Christmas ho-ho. There are reasons. I have issues with the consumer crush. While I enjoy gift-giving as much as the next person and am a big fan of the cute shops in my quaint, historic town, the capitalist push of Christmas leaves me, well, I’d say cold, except that it’s warm. But you get my gist.

This push to purchase is accompanied by an expectation that we all feel über joyful this time of year. For someone who is ill or has lost someone or is lonely, such an expectation can weigh heavily on the heart. (“I should be happy but I’m not.”) I lost both parents and a husband in three different Decembers, so for those Christmases, and many following, “the most wonderful time of the year" was decidedly not. And although I’m no longer grieving or even sad, I am…thoughtful.

And winter is a thoughtful time. It’s a contemplative time, or it used to be. This brings me to another reason I’m not wearing felt antlers. There is a perverse need, in this culture, to make everything sunny and 75 all the time, to make everything happy and upbeat always. It’s a skewed approach to Life because Life is light and darkness, both. Like the in-breath and out-breath, you really need both.

Winter, with its extended darkness, allows Nature to rest, babies to gestate, and souls to reflect. In the natural world, it’s a slow, quiet, downtime—an introverted time—that balances the extraversion and energy of the summer season. The darkness of winter, before the discovery of electricity and the machinations of Madison Avenue, gave us all a physical and psychological break.

Contrary to popular opinion, Christmas, Solstice, and Hanukah are not about light and bright: they are about the promise of light in the midst of the darkness. They are about hope and faith and knowing your place in the cosmos. They’re about going within and finding your center, your soul.

So while I love the festive spirit of the season—love my “small town with big atmosphere,” and finding my angels on the giving tree and hanging greens—I also feel called to speak for the soul, because soul matters. The soul, like the seasons, has its turnings, and the soul likes nothing better than to feel deeply. It knows that there is great fertility in the deep-down places. It has no fear of the dark.

I'm saying that it’s okay if you feel contemplative, subdued or even sad this season. There’s nothing wrong with you if you’re not into the hubbub. You get to be you. If you feel jolly, more power to you. Be as happy as a hot toddy. And if you don’t feel jolly, that’s perfectly fine, too. You can also have a hot toddy. Or a piña colada, depending on the temperature.

Wherever and however you find yourself this season, may you be blessed by its simple beauty, filled with peace and abundant in love.