Heart and Mind

"Yuletide Carols Being Sung by a Choir"

I always long for those Christmas seasons of my youth, where things just seemed so festive, so happy, so warm and fuzzy. Every year I hope that I will experience it again.

But Christmas hasn't quite been like that in many years. I know this is already starting to have a pessimistic tone, and that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not saying that Christmas still can't be fun or that it isn't fun.

It can be, and often it is. But most of all, it seems like the season just kind of blows by. As I type this now, it doesn't quite feel like it's only four days before Christmas. In some ways, of course, it does, because we've all been busy, buying gifts, making sure we've remembered as many people as we can in terms of cards and trinkets to give out, and wrapping up our week at work in anticipation that we're going to have a day or two off. But from a "festive" perspective, it seems like I'm still waiting for the holiday season to start.

What "festive standard" do I hold things against to determine proper "festiveness"? I'll say, in short, Christmas never seems quite as festive as I remember it being because it's never like it is in the songs.

Yeah, that's right. Christmas songs. For me, nothing makes me feel more warm and fuzzy than the feelings behind some of those Christmas songs. And I'm not necessarily talking about ones about Rudolph or Grandmothers being victim to hit and run accidents. But when you think about some of the more traditional songs, they seem to paint an idyllic, tranquil, idealistic picture that just seems, unfortunately, more inline with days gone by (either for us as adults personally, or us as a society in general).

"Through the years, we all will be together." "Here we are, as in olden days, happy golden days of yore." "Later on we'll conspire, as we dream by the fire." "Faithful friends who are dear to us, will be near to us." "From now on, all our troubles will be out of sight."

Christmas songs seem to paint a picture of this huge, season-long event where friends and family all come to town and frolic about in a carefree way, yukking it up around the eggnog and enjoying leisurely walks though quaint little villages. And maybe—maybe—people experience that a little bit or for a couple of days, but for the most part, it's an impossibility because we work right up until the holiday.

You know how life slows down at work in the days before Christmas and, on Christmas Eve, if you even go to work, you usually have a half-day or something? If life slowed down like that on December 1, instead of December 23 or 24, we'd have a chance of having a holiday like the songs dictate. A season-long celebration. But as long as we have to work, as long as it's business as usual, it's tough to achieve the same feeling I had when I was young.

Most people would probably jump to the conclusion that the magic has been diminished since my formative years because I get fewer presents or because I don't believe in Santa Claus or other things like that. But I really don't think that has anything to do with it. It's about a lack of time. It's about the similarity of December with the daily grind that typifies the rest of the year.

posted by Steve @ 1:36 PM