‘Tis the Season

Well it is some sort of season. Always is something or other at any time of year. But now we face the excruciating wonder of the holiday, Holiday, “Holiday’ season. Some know it as Christmas. Others know it as Kwanzaa, while others make Hanukkah their festive choice. No matter the cultural pivot point, these are the holidays bandied about in the public voice over and over again throughout the year, not just between Thanksgiving and New Years.

I know it is a happy time for most people. But it is an unhappy period for many, and the juxtaposition of the two camps of people make it harder on the less fortunate among us. That is a simple statement of the facts.

When a gazillion people are making merry at holiday parties, drinking and eating the most fun food and beverages, there are many millions who don’t because they cannot. It is not a choice for them. They do not have the wherewithal to pay for such festivities.

And the gift buying and sharing? It makes it only worse.

We grew up with expectations and eventually were disabused of those expectations. Our hopes and dreams would not come true in spite of our wishing them so. The more we understood this, the more mature we knew we were becoming. At least emotionally.

I recall seeing my parents enter their senior citizen years and wonder about their lack of enthusiasm for this time of year. I thought they were being curmudgeonly.  Their lack of spirit for the holidays tended to pull my spirits down. Slowly I came to understand their reluctance to celebrate the holidays.

First, it was a lot of work to participate in it. Second, it was emotionally draining. Third, it was costly; the family grew by generational math factors and gift giving became a financial burden. But fourth, they came to realize the true meaning of the holidays had little to do with the trappings and customs most prevalent in public view.

The important thing is being together and sharing each other. With passage of time and changing relationships because of the passage of that time, older people become much more dissociative of the celebrations. A gap appears between them and the rest of the population – yes, even their family members. It is perfectly natural, I think. But it is uncomfortable just the same.

Perhaps that is why senior citizen communities are growing. They have their own age-related cultures to focus on. And they enjoy them. The camaraderie is real, sincere and expansive even while many of the older crowd fall by the wayside with illness, incapacity and death. It is inevitable but one does not necessarily wish to be reminded of it.

I remember the movie Cocoon. It was about death and dying with the twist that aliens could transport those who wished to an interplanetary site where aging was halted and death simply did not occur. Some chose to remain home regardless of the circumstances. And as good a film as it was, we young folk in the family delicately avoided talking about the movie with our parents. This was so because we thought they might find any discussion of failing health and death as unpleasant reminders of their own inevitable fate.

But it is our fate, too. Yours and mine.

Enjoying the time of the present is more difficult than people let on. Enjoying a good conversation among friends and family is an art. The spontaneous is best. Planned chat requires so much more art and effort to make successful. Until at least the alcohol kicks in and lubricates social interaction. Then the hilarity is allowed to happen.

If you are no longer a drinker or never were, you will wonder how the lubricating part works or why it ever did. Exposed are the frailties that inevitably exist. Then and now, there is no difference. Reality is what it is regardless of our efforts to disguise it.

Yes, our culture requires us to enjoy ourselves. We act roles. They are pleasant window dressing but they are fundamentally dishonest. And we know it is. Even as we carry on the act. It is polite, right?

Well, yes it is. But it can work only so far before the joy is lost and the fun encounters fail to appear. Best to use this only as an ice breaker and then jump in with abandon and truly feel, relate and enjoy each other. Not an easy task, but we perfect such images that the paradigms are impossible to recreate in real life.

For those of us beginning to be too old to care, we remain at home in our comfortable familiar surroundings and enjoy life that is left for us. It is good. It is a pleasure in its own way. And the fuss and much ado that is missing is part of why it is such a pleasure.

Hard to understand? Well your time will come when this makes perfect sense. I know it does to me.

Who would have thought it?

November 30, 2015