Many of us are feverishly finalizing our Christmas prep. It’s only one of the holidays of the winter season, but it’s a biggie. For those of us who celebrate the religious part of Christmas, we all know the story of the Nativity and how we ended up celebrating it in December; it’s not news.
True, all America’s holidays have been overly commercialized. As for the religious ones, through the decades, many generic traditions have wrapped themselves into them. Some of those were introduced by marketing, but more originated in dozens of countries over time. Whether religiously based, culturally adopted after centuries of storytelling, or completely fabricated for fun, today’s holiday traditions are here to stay. That’s okay because we know what we will celebrate religiously and what we’ll celebrate festively with no harm done.
The generic traditions and partaking of the contrived, commercial fun parts shouldn’t diminish or distract from the spiritual side of Christmas. The religious and the retail are very easily separated. There’s enough of both that we can allow ourselves to both worship and joyfully participate in as much or as little of each as we choose, without guilt.
The season brings gifting, trees, lights, caroling and, of course, the family gatherings which are all about love; they’re the best part. We share dinners with special foods, rarely baked goodies, eggnog and music. Sure, we might think the twinkle has superseded the reason for the season, but we could also say it enhances it. Besides, it’s all wonderful and, as for the jolly Santa merry part, no one can argue with anything that brings so many of us together in a spirit of altruism and back home from afar. From across the world or around the corner, the traditions that involve giving, homecoming and so many things joyful are for anyone who wishes to partake.
As we exhaust ourselves with shopping and shipping, prepping our menu, and as we bake and decorate, the Hallmark Channel may make us wonder where our personal holiday movie moments are. Many of us bank everything on that single day when the cookies are plattered, a whipped cream wreath floats in the eggnog, and the tree is glitzed and gorgeous. We might look for that perfect setting, but that could make us miss the real definitive and defining moments of our holidays.
There is no singular frame of film or even one special day that defines our holiday. Our definitive Christmas highpoint is actually many abbreviated moments – more speckle than sparkle. We make those moments happen.
Of course, as we binge-watch holiday movies, it looks better on film, with professional hair and makeup, lighting and retakes until perfection is achieved, every frame captured as a portrait in a perfect soundtrack. And so true, wouldn’t all of life be better with the perfect soundtrack? Maybe that’s why so many people carry their music with them, listening all day through ear buds.
Still, our moments happen when they happen and we don’t want to miss them looking for the big picture. Although, we’d love for them to be on film too, like the fake ones, for us, memory will have to serve. Oddly enough, those memories, in time, will grow more and more like those perfect holiday movie moments. Edited by the years and personal recollection, our memory has a way of sound tracking the good stuff, and soft-lens lighting the hardships, leaving only their glow and invaluable lessons behind.
We bake our Christmas spice cake two weeks in advance to let it mellow. We box up cookies to share or ship. We make extra special donations to the local food bank. Every one of those moments is our own personal Hallmark holiday movie moment. We may not realize it without the bells in the background and that sticky bubble snow perfectly timed, but they are.
We don’t have to search for our life movie moments. Rather, we should just realize they are all around us. While those cookies we make with the grandkids go in and out of the oven, that “selfie” we take is one frame of our own Christmas magic – our movie moment.
Ironically, and on the other hand, as so many of us this year will be celebrating via technology, we could recruit the family wannabe movie maker to really create our special holiday film for us. If not, there’s always the greatest spectacular of all time: Memory ... and we won’t need the soft-lens lighting.
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