Up Always

Dear Kate,

My Christmas tree is up.  Not already, but always.

Years ago when I first moved into this house I found a few dozen old coat hangers the previous owner has left me, like he knew I am the kind of person who would see the potential in dry bones and act on the prophesy.  One very stormy November afternoon I took out a plier and a roll of duct tape and made a free standing structure out of them.  My hands smell like copper ever since.

This year I added some fairy lights to it, because one of the strings isn't working any more.  I hope I am not overdoing it.  You can never overdo Christmas.  Just ask Elvis.

Now, why can't everyday be like Christmas?  I think this is one of the most important human questions.

This is not to say Christmas will always turn out to be good, for everyone, for one person over the course of his life.  In fact, if Christmas is any good at all, it's because it is a tragic ideal, like our longing for community, "togetherness," which never fails to rekindle our imagination despite many repeated prior disappointments.

I have never in my life by the end of a December 25 said to myself That was just as good as I imagined, wanted it to be: I couldn't have asked for more.  I could have asked for more, if I knew what to ask for.  Christmas is so good that it's never good enough.

Just as human's impulse towards an authentic togetherness often paradoxically leads to tyranny, our longing for the Good News of Christmas compels us to manufacture a magic we fail to summon year after year.  Is there a season more bastardized by humankind?

This Christmas will be a different one for sure.  How are we going to do Christmas when there is not much we can do about it?  No anticipation means no disappointment, no Christmas blues: wouldn't that be a more "mature" approach to "flatten the curve" of our childish heartbeats?  Why can't everyday be lived like there needs not be any Christmas at all?

Yours, Alex