It’s that time. The tree and decorations must all come down. It’s a sad undertaking for me. I’m not sure why that is. After all, the New Year is here. Shouldn’t I be ready to make a clean sweep and start the “New Year” with enthusiasm? Is it the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010 that has me down?
I didn’t put the tree up this year. It seemed beyond me somehow to muster the energy and enthusiasm required to open the boxes and get out the decorations and ornaments—to sort out the Father Christmases and snowmen and find just the right spots to place them all.
Chuck put our aging artificial tree together and Christmas Eve Luke and Lisa decorated it with Lucy’s help. It made for a lovely photo op. The twinkling lights were lovely and Lucy’s enthusiasm for all the ornaments was charming. Christmas morning Lucy even by-passed her gaily decorated presents to admire the ornaments again. She lacks something we have come to expect of children on Christmas. She doesn’t have that over-the-top enthusiasm that makes them rip into their presents and open them all at break neck speed. This high pitched enthusiasm is usually followed by a disappointed funk when they realize they didn’t get every last thing on their extensive Christmas lists.
Lucy had to be coaxed to open presents. She would comply, open a present and then want to play with it. Her method made her gifts last the better part of the day and she enjoyed them all—even the clothes. She didn’t know what to expect of Christmas and so she loved every part of it. The tree was beautiful, the Christmas program at church was greeted with the enthusiasm of a Broadway spectacular and the gifts were all wonderful. What made that possible for her? Her innocence? Her lack of expectations? Her lack of experience?
I’m not sure what accounts for her enjoyment but maybe there’s a lesson here for me. My sense of malaise and disappointment must somehow be related to unreasonable expectations. If I could understand that maybe I could find a thread of hope and enthusiasm for 2010.
Somehow, it all seems tied to decorating and so I wonder what that’s about. Why do we decorate for Christmas? If we don’t decorate, we are suspected of being “Bah, Humbug” types who don’t revel in the joys of Christmas: the gift giving, the entertaining, the celebrating and maybe, to an extent, the joy of surviving another year.
I don’t feel like a “Bah, Humbug” type, but I do feel that the whole Christmas season has devolved into greedy excess. We didn’t give many presents this year. We donated to the Heifer Project and kept our gift giving modest. That was hard. I still want that wonderful feeling of giving just the right gift. I love the “wow” factor when you find the right thing and watch someone open it and just know that you hit it out of the park and they are truly happy. It seems harder and harder to achieve that feeling. Everyone seems to already have everything they really want or need and so we sink into excess trying to capture that feeling of surprise and pleasure in our gift giving. We forget that all the gift receiving may be creating a numbness that prevents true surprise and gratitude.
My mind took a peculiar jump here and I started thinking about make up. Maybe house decorating is akin to a woman putting on her make up. It’s a signal that all is well. The fact that she makes the effort to look better makes her feel better. Maybe decorating makes us feel more like we have the holidays under control even if we are collapsing under the weight of expectations beneath it all.
Since my diagnosis, I have worn little make up. I’m bloated and my skin is blotchy and I don’t have the energy to worry about it. My hair is coming back but there’s not enough to comb yet and so I seldom even look in the mirror. When people tell me I’m looking good, I think they must be crazy or are trying to be kind.
I wonder--if I started “decorating” myself again, would I feel better? I went to a class of looking and feeling good during cancer treatment. There are plenty of women who make a great deal of effort getting the right wig and keeping themselves made up and smiling. I still have the bag full of free goodies they gave me. If I did start using them, would it be to benefit myself or to reassure others that I am doing ok? Maybe I should put on the wig I’ve never worn and get out the make up and see if it does make me feel better. Maybe decorating isn’t the worst idea after all.
Of course, I still have to un-decorate the tree but after processing all these random thoughts I do feel a little better.
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