Advertisement

firehouse pizza banner

Cheryl Hughes: Comfort and Joy

I love this season.  Even when my funds are low, and I am scrambling to come up with gift ideas to fit my budget, I still love this season.  I like to give gifts, I like having a license to eat candy and pie, and I like shopping at the mall with all the other shoppers who are just as crazy as I am.  The experience offers a camaraderie you can’t find at any other time of the year.

There are happenings that take place during the holiday season that can’t be replicated or reproduced at any other time of the year; odd little things that bring one an inexplicable sense of comfort and joy.  Things like your husband cracking and hulling out black walnuts by the fire place, in hopes that you will soon make a batch of fudge, to which you will add the nuts and a couple of errant hulls that have escaped his notice, but not the notice of your broken lower molar. 

Things like snoozing on the couch, drifting in and out of consciousness during a football game, only to be startled awake by maniacal laughter and gloating when the home team makes a touch down or catches an interception.   Nodding in agreement when you’re told for the thirteenth time this quarter that nobody has anything that can get through this defense then drifting back to sleep, awaiting the next earth-shattering play.

There will be the comfort of Christmas meals that serve three kinds of potatoes at four different relatives’ houses on one and the same day; and dessert, dessert, and more dessert.  Jam cake and coconut cake, and red velvet cake and sweet potato pie and pecan pie and chess bars and date balls and Aunt Jane’s special pumpkin roll, and Uncle Stuart’s deep-fried Oreos, and if you try one, you have to try the other.  It is the season of charity and stuffing, after all.

You will be invited to a Christmas play, starring your third cousin’s second child or you will be asked to play shepherd number three in a Christmas play or you will be asked to direct a Christmas play.  Maybe, you will get lucky and actually get to see a semi-professional production of A Christmas Carol or The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up, the smart money is on shepherd number three.

There is music, music and more music.  Silent night is anything but.  Bing’s Christmas is white.  Elvis’ is blue.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will sing Hallelujah.  The screaming leads of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra will transport you to a futuristic state, while Andy Williams pulls you back to Christmases of past.  All of this will take place in a 30 minute window, thanks to satellite radio or the eclectic taste of a generous relative who willed you his CD collection.

Somehow, this conglomeration of sight and sound comes together once a year.  It is the collective and the experience of the collective that creates the celebration of Christmas.  It can’t be defined or pigeon-holed.  It can only be experienced.   Comfort and Joy.  Here they come.  Don’t miss them.

Tags: 


Bookmark and Share

Advertisements