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Happy Holidays!

Love n Letter December ‘09

Happy December and Glorious Holidays to you!

Yes it is Holiday time again!  In my life, I usually look forward to the Holidays. At Christmas time, I love the smell of pine and get branches to spread all through the house.  I love to gather with family to decorate and trim the tree with the same (and new) comforting delights, to find just the right gifts for each person, to plan special holiday meals and treats… and so on.

But this year is different.  We have just moved into much smaller quarters with no room to entertain.  The cost of the move had depleted any extra gift money and I am working over the holiday.  We do have a small, fake tree on the jewelry chest in the corner, but there is no smell of pine.  Even though I feel mostly okay and positive, knowing that this situation is only temporary (which I am quite proud of actually), there is still another part of me in mourning for so much loss.  My provider issues are up around no gift giving or hosting the holiday this year.  Old feelings of unworthiness clamor at the door of my psyche, no matter how I choose to focus on what I prefer.  This year I just want to hide and lick my wounds.  But that doesn’t help me feel better either.

This evening I went to see a live version of A Christmas Carol, by Dickens.  I have seen it a million times, but this was the first year, I actually identified with Scrooge!  My bah- humbug is up big time!  What a shock!  I always wondered how anyone could feel that grumpy at this wonderful time – now I guess I am finding out!  I dropped a few tears as I recognized myself, and became inspired and determined to give my ego a shake and no matter how it looks, to make this the best Christmas ever!

How can I drop my blues and step back into the Christmas spirit to whatever extent is possible?  I grabbed the bull by the horns, called my daughter and made a date to see the New, Jim Carrey version of “A Christmas Carol” in 3D and may include some other friends.  We will make an inexpensive meal and play some games together that night.  We will ask for and offer gifts to one another that cost only time and loving energy with each other.  GOSH!  We may be able to create this night more in the true spirit of Christmas than ever before!  My mind is racing now and feeling more full of Christmas moment by moment even as I think about it and share it with you.

Over the last 5 years, I had a lovely home to share with my lover and my daughter. I just realized that during that time, I have sought to create a similar feeling and beauty to the Christmas’s that I experienced growing up.  But alas, we were never able to quite achieve that.  My lover, uncomfortable with family holiday celebrations (because his memories were not as happy as mine), did his best to join in where he could, but there was a lot of resistance (although it did improve at the end a bit).  My daughter, who was raised Jewish, enjoyed the holiday, but because she did not enjoy this tradition from childhood, it did not have the same flavor for her as it did for me.

My lover was recently sharing how he was aware that he was holding onto attachments to the past that he had discovered were interfering with his present.  And as I reflected on how I feel about this Christmas, I realized that I, too, had been doing this with the holidays, which were always a very big deal in my family.  Some were great and some were not so great and some were awful, but mostly they held feelings of belonging, warmth, love and connection in our extended family – even when all of us had the flu!  That no longer exists in the same way in our family.  We have all gone separate ways that for many are not so compatible as they once were.  The desire and pull to be together has dissipated somehow.

I have been so frustrated in being unable to re-create that type of family groundedness during Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. So where does that leave me and the family that I have access to?

What is now?  What can we create – what do we want to create as a family in our now that has meaning and our own, special intimacy?  Who is our family now – the family of origin or the ones we have chosen as we have grown up?  What does that mean for us now?  I think this is a great question to explore together this Christmas in the time we do have together.

We have been thrust into a time that can no longer be based upon the past.  We have to create new paradigms and ways of connecting that honor the present circumstances and our current state of being.  What do we want to make of it?  What can we make of it?  I, for one, am intending to do whatever that is with consciousness, intent and looking forward.

And so, no matter what your circumstances this year, we all have much to mourn and much to be grateful for.  Although a lot of we see around us may seem big and scary (but hasn’t that always been there too?), we also have levels of hope and instruments of change that are maturing even as we speak in greater measure than ever before.  Our holidays are what we make it!  If there are remnants of Scrooge in you, let’s create this special time anew, in the NOW, present to our experience –honoring where we have been and in conscious anticipation of the future!

I would love to hear from you how you have reclaimed this holiday time for your family and yourself in this now.

I wish you Joyous, Empowered Holidays!

Helena