Doing December

So, it's December 7 today, one solid week into the month that holds Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and the winter solstice and how many other causes for celebration and socializing whose names I don't know or perhaps have never heard of....
How are you doing with all of this?

I have, for so many years, loved Christmas and its trappings. I loved thinking about the gifts I'd give people I loved, maybe even making some of them some years (there WAS the year of decoupage, when everybody got some picture shellacked onto a piece of wood); I loved stockings - my own and the ones I filled for other people; I loved tying pretty bows on boxes wrapped in pretty paper; I loved party food - eating it and cooking it; I loved party drinks (the Scarlett O'Hara, made of Southern Comfort, cranberry juice, and an egg white shaken into fluffy froth looks like the holidays in a glass; too many of them will make your head feel decidedly less festive the following day); I loved being with friends and family; I loved real green cedar trees, shiny magnolia leaves, nandina berries (later holly; it was just nandina that grew in our yard).

I do still love all those things, even though they're not all part of my Christmas experience any more. I pick and choose; I do what works in whatever year I'm living, in whatever circumstance I'm living through.

And that thought - living through circumstances during the holiday season - is the point of all this rambling.

What ARE your circumstances this year? How lovely it would be if all of us really could waltz through our holidays totally wrapped in bliss, totally merry....

What is closer to the truth is that most of us navigate this season with some "circumstance" impinging on our ability to experience bliss, to exude merriness....

Here's a bit of what I know about that, right now, today, without even trying hard. Tomorrow will be the12th anniversary of the day my father shot himself and died from the wound. It is also the second anniversary of the funeral of the mother of my best friend; Sarah died on December 5. Today was the eighth anniversary of the suicide of the husband of a dear friend of mine. Just two days before Thanksgiving this year, a man in my neighborhood put a gun in his mouth and ended his life. I have another friend who lost her beloved father to illness in October, and she's wondering how long that loss is going to hurt.

Everywhere, I can see, and so can you, people who are struggling financially just to take care of the basics, and for so many of those people, the desire to do "extra" and "special" during the holidays is more of a stressor than a cause for celebration. In my town right now, it's colder than usual, and I don't think my heat pump has stopped running all day. I'm thankful I've GOT one; I bet I could throw a rock and hit at least one house where people are suffering without an adequate heat source.

So, I'm wondering: what's going on with you? How are you coping? What do you do to honestly contact the things that hurt, that make you sad, and still move forward in a way that DOES allow you to celebrate this time of year, to feel joy at all the things that are right in your life, to express honest gratitude for all the good things? Because most of have our ways, some of us are looking for new ways, and all of us have a piece of this story to share.

Here's your invitation. Talk to me.