When it isn’t Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve is either a joyous celebration of new life, hope, and peace on earth or a stark reminder, in the dead of night, that your sun has yet to rise.

I've spent most of today and a lot of the past few days wondering why I don't "feel Christmasy," and a fair bit of time feeling guilty that I haven't "done Christmas things," and even more energy lamenting that I am running out of time to make Christmas magical in a household with these humans I've been sort of raising and learning alongside. Everything in America feels bleak and tense and breaking and that isn't so much political as it is holistic and I think it'll be a Christmas miracle if I wake up in the morning and, just once, don't look into my own eyes, in a mirror, and wonder how I got so tired and where that sun spark of light and fire is. And, from all of my conversations with so many of you, it isn't just me that's feeling the feelings that I am feeling and there is solidarity in this pain but. Can we find solidarity in celebration?

Regardless of your religious beliefs, Christmas is a time of great giving - lives and loves and presents and time and effort and forgiveness and ending and beginning. No matter how not like Christmas this Christmas may feel, let's try to search for those strings that connect us. They shimmer, you know, even in the dark, when light hits the strands that connect the thinnest…