How Do We Make Our Christmases Today Joyful When Our Hearts Feel Broken?

Yesterday it hit me harder than it ever has. I have always loved Christmas since I was a little girl. The years when I was young and there were lots of presents under the tree, the years when I was married with young children racing down to see what surprises and delights awaited them while my husband and I sat in front of a crackling fire and had our coffee simply filled with joy at the squeals of delight as rustling colorful paper flew in the air as our children opened their gifts. Christmas, then, for me, wasn’t about the gifts — as much as I loved them — it was about family, a cozy family gathering full of love and joy. One day out of the year that was just meant for happiness. Yes, I realize that wasn’t the same for everyone, and that many people don’t celebrate Christmas because they have other traditions, or just choose not to celebrate. But please, given that I acknowledge that I know this is true, please give this old lady a little space to linger on years gone by, happy days, family, baking cookies, getting the tree and decorating it, and living somewhere that we might actually have a white Christmas. I need this now.

Having always been a part of family gatherings over the Christmas holidays of some kind or another, whether when I myself was young, or when I had children of my own at home, my marriage has been over for more than 2 decades and my three children are married to the most wonderful people who also feel like children of my own. I am blessed with 5 grandchildren, one of whom will be celebrating her first Christmas this year. We are all over the moon about this!

But it makes my heart ache to wake up Christmas morning alone, no joyful children, no one to share the beginning of the day with, and yet I am blessed because of my 3 children only 1 daughter and her family live here and the other 2 and their families live out of town. We are still a very close family, and my eldest daughter and her family came home for Thanksgiving, and my son and family will be here for Christmas. They will be here to celebrate with me later in the day, and there will be food and lots of kissing and hugging and the joy of watching the children open their gifts. For some years now we adults did a gift exchange, we bought 1 present and received 1 present, but we all got gifts for the children. This year, because these last years have been so hard for everyone, not just our family, with Covid changing the way everyone lives, from lockdowns to lost loved ones, the holidays are an emotional and confusing time. If we can’t do this what DO we do, and if THEY’RE not here, how can we bear to do anything at all? And yet, hard, heartbreaking though it may be, we are still alive, and life goes on, and as in everything else, we have a choice. We can be depressed and glum and spread that energy to everyone around us, or we can see this special time through new eyes. That’s what I’m trying to do. And we adults don’t have a gift exchange any longer but we all get gifts for the children.

The thing is, Christmas is not just a day, it is part of what I have long called — and even previously taught a course about — “The Thanksgiving To New Year Holiday Slide” — when it is one holiday after the next, and even when beloved family comes for a visit we are overjoyed, and then heartbroken when they leave. I, for example, at 68 1/2, grew up in a time when very few family members moved away, and holidays and gatherings year round were filled with parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and if you were lucky enough to have siblings (I was an only child) there were just so many people and so much to celebrate together, and we would work together to make secret gifts for the older relatives, as well as delight in the babies and the tiny children’s sense of wonder over Santa coming! These days families live in every corner of the planet, we are lucky to have even one child who stays close, and the old fashioned notion of families staying close and taking care of their own no longer exists,

I never imagined that at 68 (starting at 65) I would begin a downward trajectory in physical decline. In one way I am pretty healthy, but mobility wise I have fallen so often that I have worn, these past 3 years, a “Fall Pendant” that I never take off, and very recently I fell 3x in less than 2 weeks, having to push my button, and much to my dismay not only did the EMT’s come but they called the firemen to come and help too because they were afraid they would hurt me getting me up. When I fall I am down, period. I cannot get up, at all. I cannot get around my house even without my rollator walker, and finally, in these last months I have realized that it is no longer safe for me to drive. This is a very hard thing for an elderly person to cope with, and I knew one day all of these things might come, but I never expected it would come this soon. An avid gardener I had hoped to still be gardening in my 80’s or 90’s. Now I cannot garden at all. But that is just one of many things, it is what it is, and as in everything else in life, as I’ve said earlier, we have choice.

My particular interesting mix is that I have had lifelong mental health problems and they don’t play well with this serious physical disability. Given all of that, everyday, not just the holidays, are hard. Getting up at all is a triumph! But despite it all I am stubborn, and I am determined to live the best life I possibly can given my circumstances. And every single day, every single hour, I thank God for my many blessings, and I have come, not only to a place of acceptance, but to a belief that my current state of affairs is a gift in many ways. There are so many things, too many things to count, that I can no longer do. But in not being able to do them whole worlds have opened up to me. I am hoping that one day I will have left a legacy akin to “The Little Engine That Could,” and that I can create art and books that can encourage and help others live their best life, and find happiness, despite their circumstances.

For example these last years I have a helper that comes twice a month. She helps me manage the house, do things I can no longer do, and she is truly like the bippity, boppity, boo ladies in Cinderella, Disney’s 1950’s movie. It seems there is nothing Eleanor cannot do and I don’t know what I would do without her. When she leaves it is as though my whole little cottage has been touched by magic. This past weekend she put up my 3 Christmas trees. They are all artificial. One was given to me Christmas 2014 by my best friend Jeff because my house had burned down and after 9 long months I moved back into a house that was beautifully rebuilt but looked nothing like my vintagey cottage with things I had collected over many years, all lost in the fire. I moved back in in October and I wasn’t going to get a Christmas tree. Everything I owned and loved was gone. I just didn’t see the point. And my darling Jeff said, “You HAVE to have a Christmas tree!” He brought me a 4′ Christmas tree that looks very real, came prelit, and he bought the most beautiful vintage looking ornaments for it and a big gorgeous angel for the top. 9 years later that is still here with me in the studio now and I love it with all my heart

The year before Covid hit I bought an absolutely charming 4′ artificial tree at the dollar store, bought strings of twinkly lights and dollar ormanents and the cutest stand up ornaments that go all around the tree on a makeshift fluffy skirt to which I added lights and purple garland. And then a year ago I bought, online, a very cheap tiny tree, somewhere between a foot and 18 inches. I had it on the half wall between my kitchen and what I have always called “The Cozy Room.” That room is now completely empty because my family had to move the giant recliner I sleep in, and my tv, and a few things to the Master Bedroom which I never used. It is very cozy and Eleanor put the tiny tree, only bedecked with the colored lights it came with, on a little table next to where Molly and I sit and sleep and relax in the evening while we watch a little something. It makes the whole room merry and festive.

And I try to introduce Christmas, in some form or fashion, into every day. Right now, as I am writing to you, I have my favorite crackling fireplace with instrumental Christmas music going. I have it on all day even if I am working in another screen when I can at least hear the music, although when I paint I make the fireplace full screen and feel as if I am in a very cozy, Christmasy place.

Another thing year round that is a must for me are candles. I wish I could afford all beeswax candles but I can’t. A few years back I found and love candles made by “Our Own Candle Company” which are half soy and have no toxic fragrance. They are 13 ounce candles that come in charming mason jars. I loved them but they too got too expensive for me. When you live on Social Security, as many of you will know, money is extremely tight and the holidays are very hard finanically. BUT lo and behold I found, a couple of years back, that you could get these candles amazingly cheaply at a company called Boscov’s. There, when they have good sales the candles are $5.99 (usually 7.99 but $15.99 and up on Amazon!) Every morning as I sit down here at my work table (A 9′ antique farmer’s table that I got for a song because it was found in a barn and is so huge and heavy it took 4 men to get it in here.) It is my most beloved piece of furniture and my whole world is on it. Computer, a million art supplies, books, sketchbooks, journals and everything else. It is my happy place. Once I’m up and have my animals taken care of (My wee tiny girl Molly, a one-eyed “chigi” or chihuahua/corgi mix, and my 2 parakeets, Franny and Teddy, a gift from Jeff for my 65th birthday after having lost all of my beloved parrots in the housefire, 4 parrots I had hand-raised and had for 20 years) he wanted me to have birds. I am a lifelong bird person, ran a non-profit parrot shelter for many years, and then heartbreakingly lost my birds in the fire. But parrots are so long lived at this point they would outlive me and that wouldn’t be fair or right. And now that I am so disabled I couldn’t take proper care of them. I can barely get around and feed Molly and the parakeets and I.

And I swear to all that’s holy, even though I stick to a strict diet, I am going to find, somewhere, some of my favorite Christmas cookies. I don’t need a ton of them, just a few. My absolute favorites are Snickerdoodles, and I love oatmeal raisin cookies but not soft, I don’t like soft cookies. I want them crisp, for dunking in coffee! And I truly miss the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. I have always loved them of course but years back my dear friend Barry made the best ones I ever had and you know what? They were just the Tollhouse cookies, but he used DOUBLE the chocolate chips and, Lord have mercy, I’m swooning.

I won’t go into it all here but all of this nostalgia and melancholy led to hours of searching online for things from my childhood long ago that I loved and missed. The old fashioned penny candy counters at little mom and pop stores in neighboods on the corner, the playground things that long ago stopped being made because they were eventually considered dangerous. You know, they were round, and kids got on them and someone spun them around and around so that you were dizzy when you got off! Yes, some children did get hurt but nobody I ever knew and nothing was ever more fun and will someone tell me even ONE piece of playground equipment NO child was ever hurt on? Oh, one last thing, I got in quite a dreamy state remebering how my mother and grandmother would take me with them to the grocery store and the most exciting thing was my mom would give me a handful of change and I would ride the mechanical horse out in front of the store forever (or as long as my change lasted!) The one inside-grocery-store memory that I have that almost brings tears to my eyes is riding on the end of my grandmother’s cart while she got coffee. Oh oh oh do any of you remember this? Then they got a bag, scooped out the beans they wanted, and dumped them into a big roaring machine that ground the beans and made the whole place smell heavenly. I grind my own beans now, but it’s just not the same.

In any case, I hope that you, like me, despite your circumstances, can find ways to bring joy into your life this Christmas. I wish you the merriest of Christmases and the most joyful holiday season, and glad tidings and blessings in abundance in the coming year.

Molly and I wish you a very merry Christmas (or whatever else you celebrate!)…