Reflections on a lonely Christmas Eve

Well, here it is, 9:25 pm, on a Thursday night. I’m sitting here alone, enjoying a nice cold porter in a tall glass. Only, it’s not any old Thursday. This is Christmas Eve.

My wife has taken my kids to Florida to visit her mother for Christmas. It is her mother’s first Christmas since the passing of her husband last year. He passed suddenly and unexpectedly just two weeks after Christmas last year.

I know what you’re thinking, “Alone? On Christmas?” The answer is simply, “yes”. You see, we, as a family, don’t celebrate “Christmas”. So, when the idea/opportunity came up for her to go to Florida to see her mother, knowing I couldn’t go because of my duty schedule, it honestly seemed like no big deal.

You see, about five years ago, during our life changing metamorphosis, we re-evaluated everything in our lives. We took everything out of our collective mental and emotional closets, threw it down on the table, and sorted through everything piece by piece. And just like the popular TV show, “Clean House”, we had a keep pile and a trash pile.

We realized that Christmas had become a horrible tradition with our families. We were both from broken homes. As far back as I could remember I had two separate Christmas celebrations. I know there are funny movie lines about children of split families making out like bandit’s by having two. Well, I can honestly say that wasn’t my experience. I remember the bitterness and jealousy of my parents trying to out do each other. I remember feeling guilty after one parent getting upset because they couldn’t afford nice things and then bad mouthing the other side of the family because of the nice gifts they got us. I even remember looking at wrapped gifts, put up, for an entire year, because we weren’t on speaking terms with the family members that gave them to us.

As an adult, and a parent, it seemed to get worse. Between Michele and I, and our multiple “obligations” we literally would have a non-stop, exhausting agenda that seemed to be decided for us, enforced by guilt. One household even demanded Christmas there in the morning for breakfast, and then, after going to appease another parent, we were to report back that evening for dinner. I remember resenting the demand on our schedule and feeling guilty because we didn't want to disappoint anyone. I remember all of us being exhausted. My kids couldn’t even spend time with their gifts because it was basically, open, pack, and leave for the next destination.

Oh, and the gifts. Where do I start? The long list? How to finance the purchases? Did we spend an equal amount on the kids? Will they like what we got them? Who do we buy for? Who do we not buy for? Who would we not usually buy for, but are going to feel guilty if they buy us something? What if what they get us is more expensive than what we got them? Would they understand if we can’t afford to get them something? All for what???? To buy stuff that will fall by the wayside in a couple of weeks? Honestly, think. Think back to how many gifts you’ve received that just hang in your closet, never to be worn. Or what about the gifts that sit cabinet in the kitchen collecting dust? What about all those toys that pile up in the kids rooms only to be thrown out the following Christmas to make room for the new junk coming in? I can’t even imagine all the money that we’ve spent, or has been spent on us throughout the years, on stuff that we never used, or didn’t like to begin with.

I actually heard that they are expecting 2 million unwanted gifts to be listed on Ebay next week! What a waste.

Then there is the January debt factor. You know when retail sales come to a screeching halt because all of us realize just how subconsciously, financially irresponsible we were in December?

Oh, and I’m not even going to touch on the fist fights between moms in Wal-mart over toys, or how people become rude and pushy in line, or in traffic.

I thought it was supposed to be the “most wonderful time of the year”?

But that wasn’t all. It was about that time we stumbled across the truth about the origin of Christmas. It absolutely blew our mind. I will paraphrase here.

Basically, the traditions of “Christmas” were around as pagan celebrations thousands of years before “Christ” was ever born. The current “Christmas” holiday was actually invented in the 4th Century by the Roman Emperor Constantine. Constantine was a pagan sun worshipper. However, he was a savvy ruler and knew how to motivate and thus control people. He realized that “Christianity” was spreading (a much different version of “Christianity” than what it is called so today I must add). It, and not Rome, was becoming the focus of much of the empire, in particular, the soldiers. The loyalty of a soldier is key in the success of the army. Therefore, giving homage to the timeless adage, “if you can’t beat them, join them”, Constantine used his alleged vision of a cross, to “unite” the empire under Christianity.

However, he did not adopt Christianity, as modern propaganda suggests. He merely took all of the rituals, traditions, beliefs and mythology of Mithraism and other pagan celebrations, and changed their names. Even the story of the death and resurrection were pre-existing stories that can be attributed to pagan lore.

The Jewish Messiah or the “son of God” wasn’t born in December. Most scholars believe he was either born in the spring, or actually probably in the fall during the Jewish holy day of Tabernacles. However, the pagan celebrated the rebirth of the “sun” on the winter solstice. He would have never celebrated his birthday (Jews don’t celebrate birthdays). He would have absolutely abhorred the materialistic catastrophe that is has become. And he most certainly would have NEVER eaten ham (pork is forbidden according the Torah).

Many scholars even question the story of the nativity entirely and list it as highly improbable and at best questionably inaccurate.


So, this discovery of “Christ Mass” being a manufactured Catholic holiday that “Jesus” would not have approved of, combined with the clearing of stress from our lives led us to abandon the entire process completely.

We made the decision that every year, at the beginning of “winter break”, we would leave for a warm and tropical destination, as a family, for two weeks. We wanted to separate ourselves from the madness by just getting away and spending time together. Oh, what a wonderful break it was. It was so relaxing and peaceful.

Well that worked for a couple of years. Which brings us to now. Last year, we couldn’t go anywhere because of my impending brain surgery. But we were together, and that’s all that mattered.

Now, I’m alone. I’m lonely. The bleakness of winter has overwhelmed me. Suddenly, I miss Christmas. Or do I?

After much investigation and discovery, and quite a bit of thought, I realized that these traditions were built on overcoming the bleakness of winter. What better way to lighten up the darkness of winter by hanging silver, gold, red and green shiny objects, and later lights. What better way to make ourselves feel better than to stuff ourselves with food? And what better way to stave off natural seasonal depression than to surround ourselves with family?

This is where I am. I don’t miss Christmas. I guess maybe I miss the distractions away from winter. But I can promise you this: I miss my family.

However, I must quote an admired friend who always said, “life is about experiences”. It’s a motto I’ve come to adopt. I appreciate this loneliness. It has helped me evolve a step further. I’ve come back around full circle.

It’s time to reintroduce “Christmas” back into our lives, albeit severely modified. It’s time to take the opportunity to rise above the negativity, materialism and commercialism. We can exercise the ancient wisdom of keeping everything in moderation. We can freely, and joyously, enjoy each others company without the stigma of running around franticly, spending outrageous sums of money, decorating our home simply to outdo our neighbors and collecting useless “crap” that we don’t need. I truly believe that everyone around us doesn’t even know why they do these things except, well because it’s just what everyone else is doing.

So, I’m still not sure about the religious aspect of the whole thing. But I’m not sure that even matters. However, there is one thing that I am definitely sure of. The way I see it, by effectively making conscious decisions, we can get down to the true spirit of the holidays, no matter how we celebrate it, and that is, simply, cherishing our loved ones and stopping the madness to realize just how truly blessed we really are, period.