Lighting up the darkness is one of the things I love about Christmas. Whether it’s strings of fairy lights looped between lamp-posts in towns or an inflatable LED reindeer in someone’s garden, lights shining in the darkest days of winter lift my spirits.
I salute the people who climb up ladders to string lights across streets for us to enjoy (they don’t have to do it, they could break their necks). “It’s commercial,” some mutter. “It’s just to lure us to the shops.” But nobody is making us buy anything. We can just stand and admire the lights.
The urge to bring light and life to the darkest time of the year is how Christmas began. Winter solstice festivals were celebrated long before the church hijacked the date for Christmas (Jesus was probably born in spring, when shepherds actually “watched their flocks by night”, not December, when they were holed up inside by the fire).
Everyone from the ancient Egyptians to the Romans and Celts brought evergreen branches indoors to mark the solstice, symbolising life when things were dying, a reminder that brighter days would come. I love the hope this brings, a hope for better times despite the darkness.
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My Christmases haven’t turned out at all like I expected. Growing up, hysterical with excitement in the run-up to Christmas Day – making cribs out of cardboard boxes, helping my mother tape shiny foil garlands to the kitchen ceiling – I imagined future family Christmases helping my own children make their cardboard cribs, decorating the tree together. We’d watch The Wizard of Oz and eat selection boxes.
And while I do watch The Wizard of Oz and eat selection boxes, I do it with my mother and brothers, the husband and children not having materialised. I’ve had to adjust my expectations and deal with a certain type of grief that brings, because not being a mother hurts more at Christmas, when a large part of the world is focused on a birth.
But I’ve had other things to make up for it – nephews to help me light candles on Christmas Eve, great friends I can drag around to festive light displays. One self-proclaimed Scrooge even comes to see Christmas films with me every year –– this year I’m taking him to The Polar Express. I’m lucky enough to have a home, the freedom to live how I want and a bit of cash to donate to charities who support those who don’t, a situation I find particularly heartbreaking this time of year. Plus, after two decades struggling with the fallout from a brain tumour, this year I’m finally in remission.
I’m thankful for my blessings even though I’ll never shake the sadness of not seeing my children excitedly opening presents on Christmas morning. (There was always a chance I would have been more frenziedly excited than them – but I was prepared to take the risk.) Grief, for times or people that are gone – or, in my case, never existed – can seem worse at Christmas.
“Those of us who are grieving must acknowledge that grief and not try and suppress or ignore it,” says Ian Kilroy, Buddhist priest and founder of Dublin Zen Centre, whose book Do Not Try to Become a Buddha: Practicing Zen Right Where You Are will be published in February. “An essential teaching of Buddhism is transience; everything is transient and passing but this isn’t where our suffering comes from. Our suffering comes from our inability to accept this or to try to resist it because when we resist change and transience, we cause ourselves stress and suffering.”
This coming Christmas is transient too of course. “This time is passing and precious; hopefully we have other people around us, and the time with them is precious as well,” says Kilroy. “It’s really important to seek out mutual support and kinship with others and hopefully pain can in some way be transformed into a sweet memory.”
Of course, sometimes being with other people can be precisely the problem if relationships are difficult. Beth Kempton, author of Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year and host of The Calm Christmas Podcast, which has had more than half a million listens, offers some coping strategies. “Make conscious choices about who you will spend time with and for how long. If you know it will be difficult, can you choose not to go or not to stay overnight? Can you just do lunch or meet up in a neutral place?”
She advises avoiding alcohol, which can exacerbate any issues, having an escape plan for when it gets too much and making a survival kit containing things such as relaxing pulse point oil and a written reminder that Christmas is just for one day.
There are five stories of Christmas, she says, stories of faith, magic, connection, abundance and heritage. “I’ve found that people tend to favour one or two of these over the others, and recognising which is most important to you, and to those you love, can help you focus on activities that will bring you joy. It can also help you understand what it is that frustrates you at Christmas and understand why others feel differently. This can help you honour the needs of others without abandoning your own and can be a revelation.”
Both Kilroy and Kempton recommend spending time in nature, deliberately stepping back from the frantic bustle and creating a space to recharge our inner batteries.
“Make time to walk, to sit in quietness, to appreciate the beauty of winter,” says Kilroy. “Plugging into nature is really important at this time of year because it is spectacular. If we consciously open up and allow ourselves to receive the beauty of the season and the energy in that beauty, then we can find our energies replenished.”
I love getting out for crisp winter walks, bringing home armfuls of greenery to decorate the house (spoiler, I put up a fair amount of tinsel as well). I enjoy blasting out Joy to the World as I unwrap angels, reindeer and Christmas teapots from the boxes on top of the wardrobe. I break out the furry Santa handbag and we hit the streets, much to the delight of small children.
Nick Cave says, “We’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy”. And while I didn’t find joy where I expected to, it creeps out of places I hadn’t even thought to look. This Christmas I hope you find it too.