Not Feeling It...
Christmas just doesn't feel right this year
I don’t get it
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right? It’s usually my favorite time of year. In fact, once Thanksgiving is over I’m counting the days until Christmas. And my birthday is in December, so it’s the king of all months for me. The day after Thanksgiving the Christmas tree goes up and the Christmas music is playing. Planning menus, shopping for presents, decorating the house and cookies, wrapping presents, and of course, watching Christmas movies; It’s A Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Elf, Home Alone, A Christmas Carol. The joy and excitement and anticipation of it all. I love every bit of it. But for some reason, I’m just not feeling it this year, and it breaks my heart.
I’ve had several friends tell me the same thing. They aren’t feeling it. Just feeling sad and not motivated to do the things that are normally fun and exciting every season. Someone told me they won’t even put up a Christmas tree this year. Of course that’s totally fine. There’s no law that says you have to put up a tree. But what’s so different about this year as apposed to past years? In retrospect, the last two years have been some of the hardest of our lives…what with Covid and lockdowns, our nutty government, the crazy media throwing us lies and curveballs, riots and mass shootings. I could go on. But even with all that, I still couldn’t wait to celebrate Christmas last year. Now, this year there’s no lockdown, freedom abounds…sort of. Money’s tight, but we have all we need. When I pick it all apart, examine the bones of what I think is going on with me and others, I think I’m just tired. The last two years have left me feeling worn, kinda wrung out like a dish rag. Not very cheerful and bright.
One thing’s for sure, I’ve been missing my childhood Christmas’. I was raised in an Italian home, and when we did Christmas, we did it big. There is nothing that compares to Italian Christmas. I had the priviledge of having all my family close by. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Most of my uncles were great uncles since my mom was an only child. My dads brother lived on the East Coast. They all served in WW2 and had the typical forearm war tatoos. Back in the day, on Christmas Eve, those wonderful uncles of mine would be dressed in slacks and short sleeve white button up shirts and ties. They’d sit around the card table (when not the card table it was the “kids table”) smoking Camels and playing Pinochle. Christmas Eve was usually at my Uncle Bill and Aunt Concetta’s home; a small duplex in Orange, California. We’d pack out that little place. My sisters and I would be dressed to the nines in our brand new matching polyester Christmas pantsuits. We’d walk through the front door and into the tiny front room, full of laughter and “Merry Christmas’”, hugs and kisses all around. It was like walking into heaven itself, if heaven smelled like the best Italian home cooking you’ve ever had in your entire life. When friends at school would ask me what my family ate at Christmas time, I’d always feel a bit awkward. We never had the usual turkey or ham with all the fixins. We ate fish. Fried white fish, to be exact. And it was served cold. We had two different kinds of pasta. I won’t even try to spell the names of these dishes. I’ve tried to look them up on Google. Can’t find anything. My sister thinks the family “goombafied” the names too much. Who knows what they’re really called. We always called it the white spagetti and the red spagetti. The white was a pasta coated in crushed walnuts and breadcrumbs made from my grandma’s fresh baked bread, all toasted with a bit of butter and salt in a pan, then tossed with the pasta. It would be layered in a baking dish and warmed in the oven. As kids we loved to eat the leftovers cold. The other pasta had a marinara sauce with a delicious secret. Anchovies, sauted in olive oil and garlic until they melted into a paste. This was then added to the marinara and poured over fresh cooked pasta. The taste was something so delectable, almost too delicious to describe. The perfect combination of tang and sweet. My mouth waters just thinking about it. We would eat that pasta cold the next day too. I remember my best friend trying the nut and breadcrumb pasta once. She asked if she could melt some butter on it or put sauce on it. I said, “No! what the heck, you don’t put butter on that, you crazy or something?” We’d finish the meal off with all the cookies; ribbons of fried dough with powdered sugar, Italian wedding cookies, those horns full of nuts or fruit jam. If you didn’t grow up with it, you just don’t get it.
All of those uncles and aunts are gone now. My dad is gone, but Mom’s still here. My sisters live in other states. My older sister, Deanna, still keeps up the food traditions every Christmas. God bless her. I never did. I miss everyone. I miss all of it.
Those were magical times for me as a kid. My husband and I developed our own traditions with our own kids, a different kind of magical, but wonderful just the same. My kids are all grown and living their own lives. We won’t all be together this Christmas, which for a mama like me, is always hard. Yet another reason to not be feeling it. Still, our Christmas tree is decorated. There’s garland on the mantel and stockings hung. The presents are wrapped and under the tree. I even made candy. It’s OK to not “feel it”. Christmas is so much more than the feelings it envokes. It’s so much more than red spagetti or white spagetti. So much more than expensive gifts and decorations. It’s about being with the ones I love. And, more importantly, it’s Christ-mas. “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son…”. So, Joy to the world, the Lord is come!!!
I don’t need to feel it to believe it.
Wonderful! Melancholy goes good with nostalgia.