'Tis The Season

"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." Buddy the Elf

 I carefully lined the students across the stage to practice the Reindeer Pokey. With antlers secured and their familiarity with the lyrics and actions, they were ready. The rehearsal went off without a hitch. Concert day arrived and the gymnasium was full of anticipatory parents and families this time.  When it was our classes’ turn, Mark planted himself in the small chair out front, ready to prompt anyone who forgot which part of the reindeer needed to be “put in”  and shook. His guidance would not be needed for the turning around each time as students did their own version of what they thought the hokey pokey looked like. As the song began to play, tears erupted closest to the stage exit. One little one stood like a true reindeer in the headlights.  It was clear that they were overwhelmed by the crowd before them and the huge expectation that they would now sing and dance.  Our student intern tried to help comfort them but when it was clear it wasn’t helping and the class was well into, “You put your antlers in”, the little person was helped off the stage.  When I later heard this story, I thought how brave and uninhibited it was to stand before a crowd of people, including her very own family, and communicate with her tears, that this was not for her.  She also created a  Christmas story for her family, me, and maybe those watching that would touch our hearts and find its way into a special memory.

My husband tells us the story every year of how in his home in Saint John as a small boy, he climbed up high on a shelf in the basement where a box of Christmas bulbs was stored for safekeeping. He found a way to open the box and remove one of the said bulbs and drop it to the floor below. He loved the pop sound so much that he continued to make his way through the box until his mother, hearing the sound, came to discover him.  I also have heard his mom’s laughter as she remembered this moment as well.

Together, Mark and I reminisce, each year about the time Maya, at four years old was playing one of the three kings in the children’s Christmas Eve service. Having to adjust the very large crown she was wearing several times, to keep it on her small head, she was more than a few steps behind the other Kings, so picking up her pace as she entered from the back of the church, she said in her loudest voice, “Wait for me! I’m coming with Jesus’ gift”. The sweetest part of this story is that she really believed she was as she carried the carefully wrapped empty box.

Inevitably, someone in our house mentions the year we came home to the fallen tree adorned only with the heads of gingerbread babies, pierced with a hook to adorn the tree.  The bodies all missing while our golden retriever, Zoe, lay close by shining her big brown eyes at us. The story is also retold of when we were students finishing our education degree and waiting for the trees on the corner to go on sale on Christmas eve and after finding the perfect one, to us, walking home three blocks while dragging it behind us as it snowed.

These are the memories we all have of how Christmas unfolds in its own way and time. They remind us that they are the real stories of Christmas. The memories of those unplanned moments, unexpected happenings, and the veering off of the perfect plans, that make their way into our hearts and are shared with others again and again.   It is not the perfectly set tables and elaborate gifts, the smoothly executed travel plans, or the ticking of boxes while preparing for traditions that often drain us or don’t serve us anymore. They all unfold without the heavy burdens often self-imposed to hustle and bustle, overspend, and over-prepare.  They are the simple moments of real living and loving that can be messy, unexpected, and full of joy and meaning. 

In the season when nature is blanketing itself in white and slowing to its own magical pace and society is asking the opposite,  may we allow our own meaningful experiences to unfold as they will while letting the season come to us. Instead of chasing unrealistic expectations, may we feel into our own stories and the memories that emerge there to remind us of what brings true meaning to the season.   And if we find ourselves succumbing to the outside pressures, cradled in exhaustion and disconnect, to live out some perfectly designed holiday, may we be our own kind of brave, and exit stage left.

(photo courtesy of Maya and her Kindergarten concert fifteen years ago)

Begin Again

 "At the beginning, there was nothing but love and stardust. My heart yearns to begin again" Atticus

We resurrected the decrepit miniature artificial tree on the picnic table in the classroom. Taped it down with masking tape and placed a bucket of random ornaments and beaded garlands next to it. Every year this becomes an exploration center in our Kindergarten classroom and I eagerly anticipate the reactions of the students when they enter the class. There is a gravitational pull towards the mangy tree, and generally the first four students to come in, plunk themselves on the bench next to it. The other's disappointment in not getting a turn is appeased by the promise of tomorrow and the other equally enticing choices. There is usually the obvious question of what to do at this center while others know right away and start adorning the branches or unfurling the garland that has seen better days.  This center speaks to the experiences of the children.  There are always those who say they have never been allowed to decorate the tree, others who want reassurance about where the ornaments would go best, and those who just drink in their good fortune of being able to do whatever they want with the appearance of the tree. There is nothing breakable and after it falls over a few times, they understand a bit more about gravity and the balancing out of the weight of the tree. At the end of the time, I ask them to undecorate  so that others can have a chance. This will take place until all students have had a turn to do the decorating and the last group will leave the decorations and the tree in the class until the holiday break.  Many students decorate it a second and third time while others have no interest but no one questions undoing the tree and all seem very willing to begin again tomorrow.

Out for a morning run like many previous mornings, I was engrossed in a podcast and looking down at my feet as they splashed through the morning puddles. The flyer delivery van was making its usual route of darting in and out of driveways, so I stepped off the curve of the road and back onto the sidewalk. With milder mornings I had not been thinking of slippery surfaces. As I rounded the corner, I could feel my feet gliding too far back and in a split second, I found myself skidding on my knees to a full face plant. My teeth were only saved by the length of my nose, which in that instant, I was very grateful for. The first thing I felt was the sting of my lip and tip of my nose.  I levitated off the sidewalk at lightning speed, glanced over my shoulder, and continued on my run.  In that dazed moment, there had been no time for resistance and I had given in  to the calamity that unfolded. This is why I was not injured beyond scraped knees, ripped tights, and a bruised ego. In the pitch black of the morning, I realized I was the only witness.  The rest of the run home, I marveled at how lucky I was and tried to make sense of what brought me to my knees. Beginning my run again, I appreciated the opportunity to do so.

I was reminded of what a gift it is to be able to begin again this week and how this is such a theme that runs through everything this time of year.  Very soon we will have the longest night of the year which will give way to the daylight beginning to lengthen again.  At the same time, Winter will begin again in the Northern Hemisphere and our celebrations of the season will whisper these same opportunities.  

Channukah came about because the Jewish community created a new menorah after the original one was stolen. It was fueled with only enough oil to burn for one day and instead, it stayed lit for eight consecutive days. This was the beginning of the eight holy days celebrated. The celebration of Kwanzaa is based on recommitting to their seven principles of  unity, work, responsibility, cooperative economy, purpose, creativity, and faith.  The African American community recognizes their ability to start again with their intentions and purpose and the importance of doing so. Even Christmas began with a story of a family looking to begin again despite hardship and adversity. To find shelter, acceptance, and peace.  Beginning again was steeped in hope for a better tomorrow based on the mercy of others. The new year is always celebrated as an opportunity for a new start in both the Chinese and Western Calendars.  It is as though each year we need these reminders,  that to begin again is the gift of being human.  It is an understanding that can alleviate so much of our suffering. Knowing we have permission to not hold tightly to our mistakes, our burdens, failures, or missteps. We can come back to good intentions, start over, and start fresh. It is like the Universe is telling us that all we have to do is set it down and in doing so we are free to begin again. So much of our lives go through learning this lesson. Every time we try something new and fail, every disastrous parenting moment we stumble through, every work-related mishap, or  miscommunication. We are always offered a clean slate if we choose to take it, knowing we can honour  ourselves this way. All of the stories we stay imprisoned in when all we need to do is put them down, dust them off, or reimagine them.  On our healing journeys, in our most important relationships, with our simplest truths, commitments, cares, and concerns. Every day we decide to wake up and leave yesterday where it belongs and take only what will allow a fresh start. Most  have traveled down many roads of regret with "what ifs" and "too lates" sitting heavy on their shoulders before they realize that they only need to stop resisting.  It is not always easy. If it were we would step back from ongoing wars, recognize that we can make sacrifices, and change patterns of behavior that are not in harmony with our planet. The person who has traded their integrity for wealth could start over or the person who tells themselves the story of worthlessness could choose another voice to hear.  If it were easy we could offer space to others to reimagine their path, choices, and intentions.  We could keep hope alive for someone else. The hope that tomorrow or even today with this breath, this present  moment, they could begin again.

And then maybe it is not so hard after all. Maybe beginning again is only lost on the masses because of it's simplicity. Maybe it is our resistance that is the suffering. When we only need to understand that our resistance to starting over/fresh is nothing more than an attachment to the known because no matter what has transpired in the moments until now, the next is always unwritten.  Perhaps it is foiled only by our fear of what we might be obligated to do or be as we envision a new beginning.  I wonder if it could be as simple as a gentle nudge of remembering from ourselves or someone else. Could our obstacles be surmounted if we just released ourselves from the old story or patterns of behavior and thinking? Every day offers us another chance to be kind to one another, to drop the burden of past hurt, and to carve a new path that allows us to walk more gently through each other's heads and hearts as well as our own. 

Whatever celebrations we are engaging in in the coming weeks, may we remember the gift to begin again somewhere in our own lives and, just like my beautiful tree decorators, have an opportunity to undecorate the clutter of the stories in our minds. May we also see the simplicity of placing it all back in the bucket and rest easefully in the eternal opportunity  we have ,in all aspects of our lives, to begin yet again with compassion, forgiveness and grace.