Making Peace With The Holidays

© 2009, Revs. Barbara and Bill Hamilton-Holway

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Bah humbug.

There I said it. I needed to say that.

Bah humbug.

I guess I needed to say that, too.

Some nights the two of us watch the evening news and feel like nothing ever changes…the rich and poor are always with us…there are always wars.

This year, more than many years, I’ve struggled with wanting to deck the hall and join the chorus and believe in peace on earth, good will to all.

Sometimes all the holiday giving feels like loot and waste…crumbled gift wrap and unneeded stuff. As soon as December is over, the valentine cards and big red hearts of chocolate will appear. It feels like the message is, “Well, you didn’t get what you wanted for the holidays, so let’s try again.” As if you just received the wrong stuff, and some other stuff would make you feel seen and loved.

The holidays are complicated: for some there’s the warm embrace of loved ones, for others there’s loneliness. Some feel the emotional violence of people who are hurting taking out their agony on one another.

Some times there are family feuds. Old ways of not feeling understood as a child come to the surface.

Some have joyful memories of gift giving and receiving. Some remember never receiving what they wanted but what someone else wanted for them.

Some remember receiving everything they wanted but not the understanding and love they wanted. Old feelings of competition arise. Differing expectations of how things should be done come up.

For some it’s carrying forward traditions passed from one generation to another, others are creating new traditions or some combination.

Some are balancing traditions and expectations of more than one family and dealing with stepfamilies and blended families, dealing with divorce and distance.

For some the holidays are just not the same since the death of loved ones. And for some those loved ones died at the time of the holidays, which quickens the loss.

In the book Still Alice, I read the sentence: “Maybe the time of year made her sentimental, searching for meaning and belonging.” Yes, that’s it. Every year I go through a process of “getting into the holiday spirit.” It’s not easy, and it catches me off guard. It’s a journey through melancholy, a feeling of geographical and emotional distance from some people I love. It is remembering, searching for ties that bind, and wondering if they still do. What is the meaning of my love? To whom do I belong? It leaves me feeling restless.

Sometimes I want to give a lot of gifts because I want to show the abundance of my love. I want someone to be joyfully surprised. Sometimes it all feels like just too much. For some, gift giving means increasing debt. Some people have no one to give to them and think there’s no one to whom they can give.

Some people enjoy the holidays, but wish there was time to enjoy them.

Some feel the magic of the holidays and some feel disappointment.

So, here we are, faced with this big time of the year and all it stirs in us.

Talk about an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Talk about a challenge for peace making.

Often just naming the pain and the conflicted feelings helps.

The two of us have extended family members across the country and we want to send them little gifts. We want to let them know we are thinking of them; we want to share a little something of ourselves. We chose some photos we wanted to share and a rice pudding recipe. We decided to send individuals in the household an ingredient and then an “open me last” present to the whole household that would be the recipe. This seemed simple, but getting it all together was more difficult than we knew. We were rushing and grumpy. It wasn’t being fun.

When I started to address a package, I flashed to the memory of my father printing holiday package labels. My father died in 2002. Still I could see his neat block printing with the alternating red and green letters. Remembering my father, I somehow loosened up a little. The rice pudding recipe called for rose water and I found in a drawer some dried rose petals and I added them to the package. I started just looking around the house and found a pine cone that looks like a rose unfolding and I included the cone. I boxed cardamom with a little white spiraling shell. In with the pistachios, a smooth, polished stone. The golden raisins got wrapped in golden tissue paper. I started having some fun.

I used to think I was a good gift giver to my father. He would open gifts, whistle, do a little dance and say, “Rootie Kazootie,” He’d hold up a shirt or tie and say, “I’m the Duke of Paduka.” Later I realized it wasn’t that I was a good gift giver, he was a good receiver. He took delight in whatever he was given.

When I think back on good memories of the holidays they don’t involve stuff. I remember scents of pine, music, candlelight, sitting in the dark with the only lights those on the tree, reading Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory or The H Street Sledding Record by Ron Carlson, walking by houses full of lights, enjoying people.

I think of friends and families gathering, of lighting candles, singing familiar songs, and of poignant musical notes rising, drifting into a deep silence.

Recently at a small gathering of women colleagues, I was kind of going on about my grumpiness and cynicism. Afterward, I felt kind of embarrassed. I’m usually hopeful. I wondered what this group would make of me. I woke up the next day to an email from one of the women, affirming each of us, including me. She wrote of her deepening commitment to our new group, her sense of promise and profound possibilities for us. She said naming her hope felt risky, that it was kind of scary because maybe it won’t happen. Maybe it will. Her words lifted my cynicism. It was like taking a deep breath. I felt a little more at peace with myself and with the season.

Aren’t we curious beings? We expect our President to bring peace to the world, when we aren’t being peacemakers in our communities, our families, and within our own conflicted selves.

This is the time of year to find some moments of quiet, call it meditation or day dreaming or a little breather or taking a break. Call it making peace.

Breathe deeply, in and out.

What can you let go of?

How can you show compassion for your self and others?

How can you enjoy what there is to enjoy?

Make peace with the holidays.

Do you hear the double meaning in that?

This is time to make peace with the holidays,

to lessen the anxiety and feel okay at this annual happening.

And, this is time to make peace with the holidays,

to use the holidays to make peace in the world.

How can you make peace with others?

How can you make peace with yourself?

What are little ways you can give and make a difference?

Who can you reach out to?

Look around at all you are receiving ~ music, dance, story, candle light, thunder, rain, patches of blue, light, dark, rainbow, double rainbow, breath, life.

Follow your impulse to give…to strangers, friends or communities. A church member serves a meal at the shelter each Christmas day and says it is her favorite holiday tradition.

Create the season.

Follow clues…when there’s a parking place, take it. Get out and see what you find there.

When you think of someone, give them a call or send them an email…

It could be the best thing to do on the morning of December 25th, or any morning, is count your blessings, sit calmly in some moments of quiet; if you are able to, go for a walk.

Barbara and I celebrated twenty years of marriage earlier this month. Daughter Sarah gave us a CD with songs she had chosen to celebrate the occasion. I had tears in my eyes as I listened to the first one: Kate Wolf’s Give Yourself to Love. On that cold and snowy night, as we gathered in candlelight around a warm fire, those gathered to celebrate our wedding sang give yourself to love. Isn’t that what we want in this season? To open up our hearts, so that in our giving away we are able to receive the gift of love we are expressing.

O’er all the weary world…stuff happens, disease, trauma, cruelty, sorrow, disappointment, heart ache, loss, still the angels come…in the form of possibility and promise, of openness, of risking and giving.

O’er all the weary world, conflict, disagreement, stress, war happens. Still the angels come in the form of stillness, breathing, peace making, in bringing joy to one face, in finding the light again in your own heart.

O’er all the weary world, still the angels come.

Still they sing love songs of peace, good will to all.

It’s risky. It’s kind of scary. Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe it will. Amen.