Battling the Holiday Gloomies

Confession: I have been unusually gloomy this Holiday season.

Perhaps this started with having pneumonia and still not being caught up with the flurry of work work and school work and house work I got behind on during this period of my life. Perhaps it's the the lack of daylight awake hours caused by daylight savings time. Perhaps it's the realization that without my car, I have to spend a great deal of time traveling from place to place, generally in the cold.

Regardless, I have been anxious, sad, generally disgruntled.

I mean, I walked into Macy's last week, the mecca of Christmas shopping, holiday melodies, glitter, glitz and ornaments the size of an average human child. Things that have always made me smile. When I was in high school, I used to plan elaborate treks to the mall at Fairfield Commons to go Christmas shopping for the perfect gifts for my friends, humming Christmas songs from Thanksgiving to New Year's. Casey and I would spend a crazy evening every year assembling little bags of Christmas cheer for people in our classes.

This year, the music made me sad. The couples scurrying around together on Black Friday made me feel infinitely lonely. When I tried to go shopping for my roommate I drew for Secret Santa, I was unfocused and in desperate need of a picker upper by the time I came out, empty handed no less.

Maybe it's a growing pain about Christmas and being away from my family. Maybe it's just another reminder that things are not the way they used to be, not as comfortable as that week we spent at the sewing machine making those quilts. Maybe it's the walk in the rain when I realized that that thing that wasn't going to be a thing meant more to me than I ever bothered to mention and the moment for mentioning slipped past.

I don't know.

But here I am. I'm in my living room. Surrounded by my roommate's Christmas joy. A village, a tree, sparkly pieces of felt draping everything like snow, even the Eiffel Tower. There's a wreath, there are even presents, mailed to me from people I love in Ohio. I've talked to my family 4 times today.

So where is the holiday cheer I've always wrapped so closely around my heart to keep me warm and bubbly and effervescent when it's snowy and freezing and it's just me and Ewok at night? Is it in batches of Christmas cookies? Holiday films about Santa?

I think it's about slowing down, about seeing love in it's hundred and one different forms and not getting so caught up in spreadsheets and boys that don't call or care and who you did that with last year that you forget that Holidays are about the people you love unconditionally, for thankfulness, for taking more than a lunch break to find a Christmas present. It's for snail mailing cards sealed with kisses to people you haven't talked to enough since last Christmas. It's about small victories in the toy aisle and sharing Peppermint Mochas and heart to hearts with your best friend. It's the joy of the first rip of wrapping paper and kisses from your Granny's lips and the smell of White Shoulders powder on her neck, familiar and welcoming, no matter how long its been between phone calls. Love. Love. Love. It's all about remembering that love come in all shapes and sizes and from all people and places, where you expect it and where you don't; when you need it the most, it's always there.

So, with that thought, I'm going to take a deep breath, still my thoughts, and drink some tea. And remember all of the tiny things that Christmas is really about.