Spirited Silence

This is the time of year when everything stands on its head.  Christmas is the only holiday that takes over an entire month—December no longer has any identity separate from Christmas.  Everything that we do and see seems different in the light of Christmas.  Being a Christian, I should approve of this.  I don’t.

This is not to say that I don’t enjoy Christmas.  I do—when it arrives.  But it seems to me it hasn’t gotten here yet, and I don’t quite like the consumer culture dragging it onto center stage before it’s time.  I do what I can to avoid it all until I’m ready to feel the so-called “Christmas spirit”: I get audiobooks for my car to protect me from the all-too-repetitive Christmas music, I try to spread out my Christmas shopping throughout the year, and I leave any decorating until a week or so before the holiday. 

To me, Christmas appears in the silent moments.  That warm and kindly feeling doesn’t come surrounded by colored lights and someone blaring “Winter Wonderland” from a speaker.  To me, Christmas is white lights on a tree in the distance.  It’s that muffled quality of sound coming through falling snow.  It’s the work I put into gifts on my own, imagining the smiles on my loved ones’ faces.

It’s strange that what is usually accomplished for me by music and song should require silence to happen now.  But then, this is Christmastime, and everything is different.  So don’t try to get me into the spirit—I need to get there myself.  Let Christmas come slowly, when the time is right.  Isn’t it worth the wait?