Thanksmas

Whew. Just put my fork down a couple of hours ago. I rounded out (literally) the last couple of days with my “Very Hungry Caterpillar” meal and for those who know, you know, and for those who don’t, a quick primer a la the childhood storybook by Eric Carle:

I ate through one piece of turkey and was still hungry. I ate through one cinnamon roll but was still hungry. I ate through one green bean helping, but was STILL hungry. So, I ate through a plate of dressing, another cinnamon roll, a piece of chocolate chip pecan pie, and some rum cake too. I was full. So full. So tonight, I ate through some lettuce leaves and pea tendrils. And I’m going to sleep.

But before the slumber seduces the roly poly caterpillar me and my snuggly cocoon beckons me in, I’ve got something on my mind that has to come off before I turn into my chrysalis this evening.

Thanksgiving and Christmas should absolutely be a melded together celebration.

Hear me out.

There’s been so much this year. SO much. 2020 outstayed it’s welcome early on back in March and we’ve been putting up with it since. My hope, my feeble little weensy hope, was that we’ve not used this disparaging time as one to roll over and be fetal positioned for the remainder. But you know what? Perhaps my hope, my feeble little weensy hope, is that we should have actually done just that thing. Because what do we do in the literal fetal position?

WE GROW. And change. And grow some more. (I’m gonna big a big girl!) And change again. BIG changes in dark, solitary (ok twins and triplets and quints, doesn’t have to be solitary), tightly confined spaces. For a loooooong time. (Believe me- it’s long-ask any lady who has been with child). Looong long. Long time.

But before way too long, out of the dark, confined space we come to see the light! And for us to see and know and appreciate the light, we have to have had gratitude while we waited in the dark. Like Ann Voskamp has pointed out so beautifully, thanksgiving (eucharisteo) always precedes the miracle. So what I’m saying is, we’ve got to have Thanksgiving all the way through up to that miracle of Christmas. So these two separate “holidays” most assuredly SHOULD be together. Like salt and pepper, Mutt and Jeff, Pilgrims and Native Americans AND baby Jesus. All together. So, I’m not judging any of you who decorated early – before you social distanced your turkey table. I’m not. I get it. Showing thanks, giving thanks, living thanks, for the expected miracle about to come. In the dark, but in gratitude. Eucharisteo. Giving thanks before the miracle. It’s active. Not just a that one’s over, on to the next one. But celebrated together.

So, wobbling down off of that box, I’ll add to this platform of mine: I’ve decided to strip it way down this year. Purging the pooch of stuff and commitments and excess. At least I’m trying. But as I have realized during this roller coaster of a year- what I’m thankful for, what brings me most joy, is just the simplest of things. What’s really important.

I put up my late grandmother, Mimi’s, nativity set for the first time since she’s been gone today. This nativity had sat in the solitary dark, wrapped tightly in a box for long enough. It was the one thing I wanted from her and I told her that very fact years before she even thought of entering heaven. There’s nothing spectacular about it to the naive onlooker. No Fontanini painted on the bottom, no Willow Demdaco collectible. The paint is flaked off, most of it sanded down by countless hands that manipulated it. If so inclined, a dusting for finger prints would find ones from generations of family- aunts, uncles, grandkids alike – that would by chance cover more of the surface than what paint is left. The stable looks like an authentic one- rickety, nails sticking out, wood split. The camel that was’s hump has concaved now, perhaps because it soaked up any remaining water that made it even look camel-ish. There are two Joseph figurines and I’m not really sure which Dad figure to place where, but I chuckle because neither one are the father and we don’t need Maury to figure that out for us. The baby Jesus lay in a broken down manger-looking more and more realistic to the bed that were that night oh so many years ago. The angel who perches atop the shanty has some sort of wax on her underside that I’m sure back when my mom’s own dimpled fingers played with her was there. The smell of it – (yes-shocker to my people that I smell it) – aged wood, rotten barbie doll rubber, and a million memories- is like I sort of imagine a stable should smell; not the like the fresh balsam and ’tis the season wallflowers from Bath and Body Works I have plugged in around it. THIS smell, in fact, is Christmas.

Placing the figures out in a methodical order: a humpless camel next to her handler, the dirty sheep next to the shepherd, adoring Mary, the two not the baby daddies (spaced out so as not to incite any argument or hay throwing), the smudge-butted angel atop the shanty, and finally, finally, the little baby Jesus. I plugged in the old light that went with it, and the glow, oh the glow.

Overwhelmed with thanks and gratitude and light out of the darkness, I had Christmas on Thanksgiving.

And I’m not even sorry about it.

2020, maybe you are starting to redeem yourself…

if not, let’s all roll over to the other side, knees all tucked, in the dark, hearts full of thankfulness as we await the miracles.