It's been an incredibly long and bleak year, for parents, healthcare workers, and all humans around the globe (I know very few people who aren't utterly exhausted). However, it is currently "the holiday season," and "the most wonderful time of the year," the month we (in our family) celebrate Jesus’ birth, among other things.
I am feeling so hopeful and at peace these days.
Our oldest son turns six in a week, and, while challenging and still very spirited, he's an amazing little human. My kids are healthy, safe, and still so happy despite this pandemic year and all that they're missing.
I love all things Christmas-- reflecting on the miracle of Christ's birth, the carols and music (except for The Chipmunks' album, which is driving me a little nuts at the moment but which the kids love), the decor and lights, the movies, thoughtful gift-giving, and the joy of little kids (Iver has really been into "Home Alone-ing" our house, as well as making holiday art and cards).
This year, I don't have to *work* on Christmas Day, which makes "Santa prep" and other Christmasy things quite a bit easier (Kelvin didn't grow up with the concept of Santa, so I have to re-explain it every year and handle the logistics, so the magic-making [as well as the general gift-planning and purchasing] inevitably falls on me. The years as a parent when I've been on call over the Christmas holiday and have had to give him detailed instructions have been nerve-racking!). I still have a lot of wrapping to do, from the package-palooza that is the result of our (and our generous families') online shopping efforts this year (although I proudly stayed away from Amazon and shopped at Lakeshore, Mindware, and other smaller businesses/on Etsy).
Iver's very wishful "Santa" list
We aren't going anywhere nor having visitors for Christmas this year, which (although we enjoy travel and love and miss our families) feels so peaceful (Kelvin's parents, who are really missing the grandsons they haven't seen in almost a year despite living in the same state, were going to come up to help us with childcare but we thought the risk was not worth it and cancelled). I still have PTSD from perhaps the most horrendous travel day of my life last year, trying to get to Virginia before flying to the Dominican Republic for Christmas with my parents. I am really looking forward to being "home" to celebrate the holiday quietly this year, which we have so rarely done in the last decade.
I've become so much better about saying "no" to the things (especially holidays things such as workplace Secret Santa exchanges, holiday baking, etc.) that don't bring me or my family joy, particularly this year when we have all felt like we’re just barely holding it together. Between Iver's late-December birthday and all of the usual "school" and holiday celebrations and social/work events, I tend to be pretty overwhelmed in December (suffering from "festive stress") and look forward to "breathing" come January. A podcast (and blog, The Mom Hour) I follow had a great article which captures how I'm feeling about how big a blessing a Quarantine Christmas can be this year in using this precious quiet time at home to make your holiday season anything you want it to be--without cultural, societal, or family pressures to do things that are somehow "expected" of us or which make us uncomfortable. (And why not carry this to future years?). It’s nice to be able to make up some of your own traditions (as we really have none to date!).
And then there is HOPE for the New Year. Yesterday, the Electoral College ratified Joe Biden's election victory despite Trump and Republicans' (failed) attempts to subvert our democracy and stage a coup. I can’t wait (sigh of relief) until I don’t have to worry about DJT and his damage on a daily basis. And on the very same day and in the culmination of truly heroic scientific efforts for the benefits of public health and in less than one year since COVID began to rock the world, the first Americans started receiving the first (Pfizer) FDA-emergency-approved COVID-19 vaccine at sites across the country (the previous record for vaccine [MMR] development was four years). Our local rural county got one shipment of the Pfizer vaccine and, while I will not be in the first group to receive it, I am so looking forward to the day in the coming weeks or months when I, as a healthcare worker also doing inpatient work, can get protected with it or another approved (maybe Moderna) COVID vaccine when it’s my turn in line. I am increasingly paranoid while caring for laboring patients, who have a hard time keeping masks on while pushing out babies, while our community spread is rising (my clinic patients, who are universally masked, make me less nervous, but some have also come to test positive for COVID).
I am grieving very hard for the people and families becoming sick, or dying, from this virus at this time, in the "eleventh hour," which I feel is reminiscent of what happened to so many of the prisoners in concentration camps, like Anne Frank, who perished just before liberation. More than 3,000 Americans per day were dying last week, which is like a 9-11 or Pearl Harbor national tragedy every twenty-four hours. It really does feel like V-day around here with this vaccine, which some have likened to a “shot of hope.” Seeing the joy in people’s masked faces as they get immunized has given me chills, and tears. We're just trying to stay safe, masked, and distanced and hang on, praying we don’t get sick before we adults get vaccinated (our kids can’t wait to get their Corona shot, too, when it’s available for pediatric patients). It is so much easier to do these things when it feels like this could be the "beginning of the end" of this horrible pandemic, if we just stay strong and don’t let our guard down.
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem, by Maya Angelou
Thunder rumbles in the mountain passesAnd lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.
We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?
Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.
It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.
Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.
In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.
We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.
It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.
We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.
