thoughts on the holiday season

for years i've been casting about for something meaningful i can latch onto during the holiday season so it's not such an empty, depressing time of year. i've always loved thanksgiving (probably due to the food angle), but xmas has no religious meaning for me, and i find the commercial aspect of it appalling. and i hate the idea of enforced gift-giving; year after year i've found myself wandering aimlessly through the aisles of stores looking for something for some person or other i know will be getting me a gift, but for whom i have no particular gift idea at the time. i prefer to give gifts when the spirit moves me, not when Hallmark says it's time.

( i was also traumatized by a gift as a child. )

a few years ago, caitlinburke told me about her mother's holiday tradition of holding a big dinner party on the winter solstice, decorating her house with images of the sun to brighten up the shortest day of the year. i thought that was a great idea, and it's been stewing in the back of my head ever since. it occurred to me that something i'd enjoy for the holidays would be to give candles for my friends to burn on the solstice, a little fire to chase away the cold and dark. i didn't put it into practice, though, because at the time i was trapped in a friendship with someone who insisted on celebrating xmas even though she'd been raised jewish. she had a mental catalog of the dollar amount to be spent on each class of person in her life and would be deeply offended if i failed to reciprocate with the same dollar amount. it wasn't about the thoughtfulness of gift-giving, it was about paying your dues and receiving your due in return for being friends. it embodied everything i hate about xmas.

last year, with that friend out of my life, i decided i wouldn't celebrate xmas, i'd just burn candles on the solstice and try to think festive thoughts. i had no one to buy gifts for, and it came as a great relief. i'd never exchanged gifts with the few good friends left in my life at that time, so for once there was no stress. and this year, with no established gift-giving relationships and the idea of shopping only for candles, i felt for the first time in my life free to buy gifts, or not, for whomever i choose, not to celebrate their religious or commercial holidays but as a gesture of my own. this year's list was very short for financial reasons, but it felt really good to linger in the candle aisle, choosing from colors and scents and shapes and styles with the knowledge that it really is, this time, the thought that counts. the candles will be burned. the physical gift will be gone in a day.

maybe i'll hate the holidays less this year.