A significant person to me once told me that their favourite Christmas memory - one of their happiest memories in life in fact - was receiving a particularly unexpected, unpretentious gift from their parents. They received a basketball hoop. The hoop itself is now weathered and sits unsuspectingly in the backyard of their house... but it was the joy of the day itself that renders the hoop so significant. It was an object of togetherness; the simple gleeful recollection of being so wholly, playfully together with all of the people they perceived as home.
For this person - like some of us - the hoop ushers a memory; it brings up an idealised fragment in time whereby family was all that mattered and the complexities and agonies of this ridiculous thing we call life are seemingly absent. This is why, I think, some of us either thrive (mostly with an element of purpose) at Christmas - or feel kinda, well... empty.
This year, without discrediting my fabulous family, I felt the latter. Admittedly, it wasn't a sorrowful Christmas - and to those who are experiencing severe loss right now, I hope you know I wouldn't know how to - or wish to - encapsulate the longing that you must suffer. I do, however, want to establish my own thoughts on why Christmas gradually fails to be the all-happy-all-celebrating fiasco our hearts so deeply crave for it to be.
As we grow up, we unintentionally convince ourselves that things outside our family take precedence. We do this without realising, yet with proper reasons. To be honest, it's necessary for growing up. Many of us have moved out of home, gained (and/or lost) life partners, consistently wish to be halfway across the world (or literally are halfway across the world) and most of us want nothing more than to be successful in the new year. We unknowingly struggle with the fact that we are not yet old - or stable - enough to be busy "creating" the Christmas fantasy for the next generation but are lost somewhere in between with no tangible grasp of it.
I personally think we hope as though the sheer presence of family (and/or comfortable people from our past) can make these adult-struggles fade away. They don't. We might try to convince ourselves they are somewhat blunted by the all-consuming hectic pace of the holidays (travel/presents/niceties with strange second cousins)... but these distractions are not truly all-consuming, nor gratifying. Often, our family members have changed and our old homes are curiously different. Essentially, we are different (wait, duh??).
Sounds pretty straightforward doesn't it? But getting my head around this simple fact has really enabled me to make peace with this festival-of-emptiness I currently call Christmas.
We just have to come to terms with the fact that we've changed in really complicated and profound ways. Our perspective of how completely heartwarming the gift of a simple basketball hoop is unequivocally lessened, regardless of how much we wish to recapture that naivety. Maybe the basketball hoop can have the same significance one day, but now - this first stage of adulthood is far too confusing and incongruous for us to figure that out.
Regardless, I hope you're all in your own way enjoying the sheer inescapable joy of the holidays.
Much love to you all,
Mielz
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