Saturday, December 23, 2000

 

8:50 p.m. I think the one really wonderful thing about a journal (any kind, including this kind) is the element of truth that it contains. You read these words, you trust that a fellow human being has written them, and maybe there's an element of community or fellowship between the lines.

Therefore, I'm not going to make these last days before Christmas seem more festive than they are, because they would be fundamentally dishonest. It's not that I'm depressed or distressed or even all that upset -- it's just that this year I'm not doing very much to outwardly festivize the holiday.

There. I've said it. I admit it. My entire family, except for my beloved Igor, is scattered along the eastern seacoast, and so there's nothing particularly expected of me as I wander this western shore. This year I did not send out cards, and I have no good reason why I didn't. I didn't intend not to -- I just didn't do it. Yet.

Ditto the cookies and the presents and the party and the tree. Sure, there's the minor problem of money ...

Some years I go crazy with preparations and some years I go easy. This year is going to be one of the easy ones and I've been appeasing my guilty conscience by promising myself that I'm going to do all sort of unexpected holiday things in the week between Christmas and New Years. Or maybe -- all through January.

Or. I may not. I may continue to slink around corners and hug the walls and skulk in the shadows, pretending I'm not really here and letting the happy parade jingle and jangle by. I'm not distressed about it -- really. I'm simply shocked that the holidays came upon me so quickly, so suddenly, so soon after I packed up last year's holiday boxes.

The one thing I love about Christmas and the one thing I would love to create more of is ... love. Suddenly. someone is nice to you for no good reason. You hear from someone you've missed for a long time. Unexpected, uncalled-for friendly gestures are made. And I feel almost overwhelmed with gratitude each time.

So, even though this is a mere holiday-lite, a holiday-ette, a Yule low-tide, here's the plan I've been hatching: my function this season and into the New Year is to be grateful. To be thankful. To find a way to let my thank-you become the expensive presents I would buy if I could.

Accordingly, I've been putting a whole lot of thought into the kind of thanks I can give, be they written, phoned-in, hand-delivered, electronic, or long-distance. The good news is that there's no limit on how well and how heartily you can thank someone. There's no special holiday set aside for it, alas, but there's no deadline, either.