Another year sneaking past me.

12/14/2025 

It’s so typical to write about this time of year, simply because it is "this" time of year. Everyone—or most everyone—is excited, whether they want “it” to be here or not, whether they’re happy or desperately miserable, excited for good, or for bad. All Christians have a strong feeling about this season, and because the world has so many Christians, that atmosphere spreads to cover the globe like a cloud. But even beyond Christianity—no matter what religion you are, or even if you claim none—there is something that makes the human being feel this time of year, either religiously or sensually: the earlier darkness, the sharp air, the pull toward light in windows, candles, music, gatherings, memories, and longing. There are no more Santa Clauses like we were told as kids. Santa died sometime during our move toward adulthood—our move out of diapers, our move out of grade school—into the awesome reality that the world is “shit.”

So the season becomes double-edged: it glitters and it aches. It asks for joy, and it also exposes the gap between the story we were given and the life we’ve learned to recognize.

Mix these in to whatever political situation we are experiencing, Gaza, Ukraine, Pakistan, so many parts of Africa and I ask myself why are we celebrating anything? I go to the grocery, to Ikea, to Kohls, to the internet to shop for things to have in the house on Christmas Day because it is the first time I will be celebrating Xmas the way my parents and their parents did. It has been over 25 years yet here I am pulling together a family day to recreate the closeness that we always forced into the day from all the times of my life until I became an adult and went into the world only to discover I am right back where I started     “wanting to feel family”...

Thus, creating an ache in my body that I have to suppress from taking over, for the sake of the others who are also hoping to find, in this family gathering, that memory, that happiness, that camaraderie—that glue, that blood—that thread undeniably and irreversibly sewn deep into our psyche, something that cannot be removed. What the h---- is this? Why do I feel so out of control.

Then I give in and rush to make Xmas tree purchases: lights and glittery things to put on the tree, wrapping paper for the gifts and toys for the “grands” who are still too young to wake up. But deep inside me is a sadness that started a long time ago and will take me to my grave.

What the hell is this all about – years of studying religions and I still can’t find, can’t hold on to an answer.