This year I am going away for Christmas. A great way to forgo all the decorating, baking, socializing that isn't really my thing. But even an old grinch like me can be a little bit sentimental. I didn't think so. Until I started poking around in the boxes of Christmas decorations I have stashed in the closet. I was looking for a ribbon to tie around the plate of cookies I was taking with me to the doctor's office. And there it was.
I took the snow globe out of the box and placed it on the ledge that separates the kitchen from the living room in my small home. I reached over to give it a shake. Inside the globe, Santa is busy making cookies, a cheery scene. As with all snow globes, it is snowing in Santa's kitchen, but that doesn't matter. Somehow Santa and cookies and snow all fit together and it is fine. What matters is that this particular snow globe is the only decoration I need to put me in the Christmas spirit, despite the fact that I am often a curmudgeon this time of year. I turned the little knob and the sound of Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas filled the room.
This little globe was given to me by a dear friend. A friend who loves Christmas. It is as if she infused this gift with all the happy feelings she gets as she does her own decorating, baking, and entertaining each year. Nothing but good feelings come as I gaze upon the little globe. And that is what Christmas should feel like.
Not feeling that way about Christmas can be explained easily enough. But explaining feelings and changing them are two different things. I made a vow long ago not to fake my way through the season, even if it meant doing nothing at all in the way of Christmas traditions. I have found that doing one or two things like baking gingerbread with a house full of kids, or buying a special gift for someone who needs it are more meaningful than when I used to try to do it all.
Each year is a little different, kids grow up, people move, families join and you work out who will go where when. Being flexible helps, I find. And letting go of expectations helps too. That way, when something sweet happens, like finding the snow globe and taking a minute to enjoy it, it is real. And being real at Christmas feels so much better than faking it.
It's been a year since I wrote those words as I paused to think what Christmas means to me, while waiting for the snow to clear so I could continue driving, on my way to visit my family. And guess what, the snow never stopped, and I never did get to go visit my family. I was stranded in Portland in my old neighborhood. Christmas last year was spent among neighbors I had never gotten to know as we shared our food stock and shoveled one another's driveways, an experience that changed me.
It's funny how much difference a year can make as well. Since then, I've continued making my home in Friday Harbor. I am so grateful for my new friends here and the way people have welcomed me. And this year, I'm flying to see my family. It's a whole year longer since my husband died, and I've been a cancer survivor for one more year too. My life as a writer is one year older, and in many ways I'm having more fun than I have in years.
And this year, I feel like much less of a curmudgeon. A little Christmas miracle. As I make a new life for myself here, I am finding that I value everything I have much more. And while what I have materially is less than it used to be, when I think of the things that really matter to me, my friends and family, I feel richer and happier than ever.
Last year when I wrote about the snow globe my friend gave me, I really was having one of those Christmases where I wasn't in the mood, and everything went wrong. That little snow globe was like a single candle flame. It gave me a glimmer of hope for better times. And here I am, one year later, and times are truly better.
Merry Christmas.
© M.E. Rollins
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