this christmas feeling

Christmas always surprises me. There are, of course, the wonderful surprises of gifts from generous friends and family that are entirely customary. What I find uplifting in a peculiar way are the greetings of holiday cheer from people I least expect to remember me.

While it is quite commonplace to receive greetings from vague acquaintances and long-forgotten friends during the holidays what is disconcerting is that during the holidays the greetings I do receive are usually from this group of people only and not from my close friends. No, it is not that I feel hurt or slighted by this. It’s pretty much understood that my close friends wish for my happiness and the health and prosperity of my family. A close friend does not need to thank me profusely for a favor. I know they appreciate the good deed done even if they don’t say anything. Yet sometimes I wonder, maybe by not voicing out our gratitude we are taking each other for granted.

There is always something in the air during Christmas that turns me into a reflecting, sentimental schmuck. It could be the cold air and the lights. Or it could be the fact that whatever time of day it is the atmosphere feels like a cold early dawn (or a quiet late evening), something which I have always associated with the right time for deep thought. You see, there is nothing better than an early morning walk to clear my mind and prime me for the day. Well, perhaps there is nothing better except for a long walk home in the late evening to reflect upon the day that has just gone.

Christmas always reminds me of those lucid nights of insomnia back in college when I would sit by the fire escape and watch as the world sleeps. On the good days I would remain in the fire escape waiting for the world to rise again. On the bad days I would lie down in bed and try unsuccessfully to sleep.

Those days are gone now. I do not have the luxury of time to while away my days in deep thought. Nor do I have the endurance to stay awake all night and still feel alive and well the next day. There are no more nights of lying in the “gutter” and looking at the stars. There are only curses of reluctance to awaken in the morning.

I am only 25 and yet I already feel old. My grandmother was asking me how many more years I had left for my studies. She has this notion that my schooling would end with my post-graduate internship in two years. Even as I become a licensed physician after the board exams my education cannot end there for I doubt I will be successful and content. I jokingly retorted that I would probably be 35 before I settle down.

I wonder how it really feels to have lived my life. How does it feel to be really old and to look back on one’s little triumphs? I always say that I can die if I’ve done something worth being proud of but I can never really explain what I mean by something worth being proud of.

Christmas always makes me feel sad and lonely. There is always something or someone that’s not there. It’s always a compromise. It’s never getting the best of both worlds, whatever both worlds really mean to me.

Adam lives in theory. Everything works in theory but that is not the way it is in reality. Christmas always makes me feel like I live in a fantasy, but every time I stop and think I am confronted by reality - that Christmas only lasts one day and there is still the rest of the year to try and be happy.

People say Christmas doesn’t have to last just one day. People say that we should strive to make every day Christmas day. But then, if that were so, there wouldn’t really be any Christmas at all. There would just be EVERYDAY.

Merry Christmas. May the peace and grace of the season bless you and yours.


(Adam lives in theory . . . Now can you tell me what, what we’re gonna do now, where we gonna go now, what we’re gonna say now . . .Lauryn Hill)