Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
Well I don’t know about you, but I just had the most fantastic Christmas of my life and that is really saying something if you know my love for Christmas and the current year we are all living in! Silver linings a plenty!
Because of Covid we were able to zoom with relatives near and far. From my Uncle in California, to my Maine nieces and nephews, everyone was included. It really felt like everyone got exactly what they wanted this year.
Another magical thing is that I have never experienced Christmas with a child who still believes in Santa. My niece, Sophie spent the night at my house on Christmas Eve and had Christmas morning with me. She wanted to set up reindeer food and cookies for Santa. My brother and I had already coordinated THE best gift for her- she had been asking for an LOL dollhouse and dolls (I would have rather given her a much more wholesome and sweet dollhouse but a girl wants what a girl wants). I had all the LOL dolls in a big box that “Santa” brought in the morning, and we also had a special stocking with her name on it that was hung on my mantel place and we stuffed it on Christmas eve so she had that to open too.
Growing up the tradition was we could open our stocking anytime and we typically had to wait for my dad to wake up so the kids would take our time slowly unwrapping every stocking stuffer while we waited for Papa Sam to awake from his slumber. I remember waking up to the stocking heavy on my foot in the morning, because we never had a house with a fireplace. This year is the first time I actually have a real fireplace to hang the stockings with care.
Morning Christmas hike by the Eno River
Special sweatshirts, Christmas present for my brother, Proceeds go to Tegan and Sara Foundation. They are a Canadian lesbian punk group I adore and have seen in person who have written their own memoir, but wrote it together! Full circle…serendipity…for me and my own twin. Fraternal twins are misunderstood but we still have the special connection. Strange plot twist, my father married a woman who had twin daughters (identical) and we were all the same age growing up. We were four 10 year olds, double trouble. But you can read more about that when I finish my book…
So she woke up quite surprised to find the food all eaten by Santa and his reindeer and her stocking full of presents and a giant gift under the tree. It made it Christmas, already one of my favorite holidays, extra special. It is even more so juxtaposed with last Christmas in which I was severely depressed and trying to “fake it till you make it” through the seasons. It was the first time I understood all the folks who hate Christmas time. It is horrendous to feel so awful while everyone else is so cheerful. I went on to attempt suicide last February. I won’t say more about that because I don’t want to trigger anyone. But when I say I am feeling all the feels this year, I mean it! I know how low one can feel and I also know how grateful I am today to still be living, experiencing this flawed world, in which it's a mixed bag of joys and sorrows. I feel like I am out from under the dark cloud that is depression, trying to tell me no one else has ever felt that same way and I will never feel any different. I feel happy and hopeful today. 2021 is a new year with lots of things to look forward to: a Covid Vaccine, a new president and hopefully a resumption of social gatherings. We are so close! I can feel it!
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
