Boyle McCauley News

Since 1979 • April-May 2024 • Circulation 5000

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Surviving Christmas

Be open to the sadness of loved ones we miss, and honour their memories.

The apple tree in the front yard still hangs on to a few leaves, but I know that the crisp air will soon persuade them to let go. Halloween chocolate has settled around my middle, and store shelves have swapped orange and black for red and green. Soon an endless loop of Christmas songs will fill the air. I feel my spirits sinking at the thought of the countdown: only 35, 30, 25 shopping days left . . .

I find myself in the older generation with much more of my life behind me than before me. I think of past Christmas celebrations, which included grandparents, aunts and uncles, and my parents. Some of my cousins have lost siblings. I am thankful that I have not, but contemporaries are beginning to appear in the Journal obituaries. There are spaces around the Christmas table and each vacancy triggers the jokes, songs, tales, laughter, and favourite foods that my missing people brought with them.

Last Christmas, a wise person gave me some advice. Firstly, self-care. Yes, Christmas is about giving to others and socializing but taking care of myself is the foundation that makes anything possible. Then there’s Vitamin D in a country that cannot provide enough sunshine when the sun slants toward us at such a low angle for too few hours each day. My SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) light fills in each morning, tricking my body into thinking I’m sitting in the sunshine.

The most important advice this counselor gave me is to be open to the sadness, the pain of missing loved ones, and to feel that deep hole in the heart and truly mourn. Then, to introduce something symbolic to honour those who are not present. At my home, we light candles, going around the Christmas table filled with steaming food, naming someone we wish was with us and lighting a candle for them. Sometimes we need a second round; sometimes the same person comes to different family members. We sit in the glow emanating from the middle of the table and remember that Advent and Christmas is a time for new birth, a time to welcome the sacred into our lives again, for remembering that solstice on December 21 was the shortest day, that by December 25 we are already heading toward more light.

Our people are with us in spirit. We can reminisce about how much Dad loved stuffing but “there’s not quite enough sage.” How Nonna would open her last present and then ask, “Is that all?” How uncles automatically broke into four-part harmony when we gathered around my aunt’s piano to sing carols. How we sometimes got the perfect gift we had longed for and sometimes we wondered how someone thought we wanted “that!” The circle is completed by those present and those absent, and it is time to be thankful and lift a glass of cheer that is half full, not half empty.

Sara lives with her family in McCauley.

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