Part - no, most - of my blues this holiday season were based on the demise of many cherished and honored traditions. Time has continued to flow its slow, meandering path and despite my best efforts to back-paddle, I have been swept right along. The stories, the songs, the parties of my youth are relegated to the many boxes in the warehouse of my mind* - out of the way, but available for perusing should I need a shot of nostalgia.
The Christmas tree hunt alone - with its hot cider in trusty thermoses (thermosi?), treks through the snow, choruses of Oh, Christmas Tree (changed to Oh, Taunenbaum after my sister's 2nd grade holiday performance) before each person took his or her turn with the axe, lights and cookies and fudge and toffee and eggnog...the list goes on - takes up most of one shelf.
Next to it sits a pile of holiday stories: The Polar Express (Van Allsburg), Christmas at the Tomten's Farm (Wiberg), The Nutcracker (Hoffmann/Sendak), each with their own little sheaf of memories tucked in the front cover.
Beyond that is a huge box of ornaments. No, not the typical balls and lights. The Salt Dough Gingerbread Man I made during my only year in Brownies. The clothespin Rudolph. The ice cream cone Santa. The picture frames and magnets and figurines that my siblings and I presented each year with such pride. The delicate Alaska ornament that my Uncle Joe sent one year. The cardboard star with the scotch tape loop on the back and a new layer of tin foil for each year it was hung in it's place of honor on top of the tree. These are the ornaments that fill that box to the brim and beyond.
There are shelves and shelves of this type of thing. It is wonderful to rifle through the boxes, but sad to know that none of it will happen in real life again. Those days are past. My sorrow on Christmas morning was not so much for the passing of the moments, after all that is what life is, but for the passing of the feelings that accompanied those moments. I was grieving the loss of that safe, warm, homey feeling that always surrounded me for the month of December, for the peace and harmony that seemed to take hold of us.
What I need to remember is that that feeling isn't gone. It is here all the time - surrounding my new house and my new family every day. If I want to feel is especially at Christmas time, I need to develop new traditions - new moments to share with my new friends and family. I need to notice the things that make me feel warm and fuzzy each year and remember them, storing them not in the back recesses of my memory, but on the clean organized shelves of the front of my warehouse where I will be able to find them when I need them. I need to get a nice, new box and start filling it up with the things that make life special for Mikey and me. In time it will come to match the tattered and battered boxes that hold my childhood memories - making the contents not less valuable, but more.
Although I have had trouble replacing my Christmas memories, I have done a better job with the New Year's ones. Perhaps because the originals weren't quite so near and dear. Last night, Mikey and I spent the second year in a row snuggling on the couch, watching MST3K and snacking on our favorite appetizers (Jalepano Poppers for him, Mozzarella sticks for me). We made goals for the upcoming year as we sipped Martinelli's and tucked ourselves quietly into bed at about 12:17. Calm, quiet, peaceful. A new tradition for the holidays, a new box for the warehouse.
I can live with that.
*I must give Stephen King's Dreamcatcher credit for this metaphor. I LOVED the images of Jonesy and his warehouse mind.
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