Christmas: continued

Jan's threatened "cork-popping" about the Christmas-is-over-crowd is well heeded here. In certain real sense, it has just begun for me. Here's a confession for you: I'm still learning to love Christmas. That may astonish some, but it hasn't been long since I began to dissociate the season with shopping and eating and gaudy decorations and music that incessantly attacked my senses, and, more, shopping. A couple of years ago Rush Limbaugh had a feast day over Maureen Dowd's article in The New York Times about her bitter and depressed regards towards Christmas. Rush offered to reboot her perspective and cheer her up. It was a radio riot as only Rush was able to muster. I love Rush, but secretively found Dowd's sentiments sympathetic.

But that was then. What difference a few years have made! I'm not saying I'm totally smitten with the season; I can't be blind to the cultural and commercial side of it, which is easily overwhelming; and I am every bit prone to the distractions and diversions from between the store ads and the kitchen pantry. The last several days found me all Martha, nearly completely absent of Mary. When the parties receded, the remains of the parties shoved away or hastened into the dish washer, and I finally had the rest of the night safely parked on the couch and next to the silent lamp, what I reached for was Dante, in stead of the Bible or The Little Book of Hours: my wayward heart wanted art after several days of "martyrdom" in the kitchen and amongst wrapping paper, it wanted luxury in lieu of necessity.

So, you see, I haven't quite gotten over that residual, hmm, to put mildly, ambivalence, about how much I have to do to be a social and family creature. Generosity of the heart is hard to come by when one is sluggish in seeking external assistance. But at least, I'm able to shift vantage points, shake my head, and laugh at my own forgetfulness and childish ways.

Roll on, Christmas! I'm ready to recollect, gather my dissipated self. After every tiny shattering, there must follow every re-creating. Roll on, Christmas!

Maureen Dowd on this Christmas: fun to read, and I didn't know she had a conservative brother, to boot.