Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 250

You guys,

I told myself I wouldn’t write about the post-Christmas blues this year, the way I did last year and the year before that. I was going to beat the blues this time, anyway. I even made a note in my phone titled, Operation Post-Christmas Blues, in which I listed things like, “A new coffee mug for after Christmas,” and “some kind of twinkling lights that aren’t Christmas-related,” and, “more snowmen… they are wintery and can stay up after Christmas.”

Things were going well. I did not feel an inkling of sadness on Christmas night, after the kids went to bed and we stayed up playing Code Names with my in-laws. I did not feel the usual emptiness of the house on the morning of December twenty-sixth, when Sam’s family left and drove back to Charlotte. There were a couple fleeting moments of blues in the next couple days, which I hesitate to describe because it’s such an obvious feeling to me but I know there are people, like my husband, who can’t relate. I wonder if this is how it goes for anyone who loves Christmas to the point that they identify as “obsessed with Christmas.” The people who can’t wait to hang the lights and turn on the music and wrap the presents and do all the traditions. Do all of these people, who get such a high from the holiday, also feel the lowest lows when it’s over?

It wasn’t until December 29 when the tsunami hit. I was going to wait until New Years’ Eve to take down the colored lights wrapped around the banister and framing the windows in the playroom, but as I stared up at the lit stairwell in the morning—since I turn them on as soon as I wake up—I couldn’t bare to look at them any longer. I hastily unwrapped the banister and the sound of the lights hitting the stairs and the wall echoed in the hallway. Sam and the kids were in the living room. “What is Mama doing over there?” Sam asked the kids. George ran to the foot of the stairwell. “Oh, she’s taking down the decorations,” he said, and went back to the living room.

George had already seen me clear out the Santa figurines and nutcrackers and lights strung in the library days before. I was glad he was unbothered by something that made me catch my breath. I moved upstairs to the playroom and one by one, began to unravel the lights around the window frames. They whipped to the ground and smacked the hard floor, and then I heard George’s voice again.

“Mama?!” he called. I sensed something different in his voice this time, and I stopped.

“Yea bud?” I called back.

“Don’t take down ALL the decorations!” I heard his little feet running up the steps. I heard his whimpers as he entered the playroom and he looked at me with the kind of frown on his face that can only turn into one thing.

I put down a string of lights on the back of the couch and walked towards him with my arms outstretched, giving him what I wanted for myself.

He wrapped his arms and legs around me and rested his head on my shoulder—a perfect mold—and he cried. “I’m sorry, buddy,” I said. “It’s okay. I’m sad, too.”

I stood there holding him, trying to think of something to say. I had promised him we’d do a craft this morning, and was about to remind him, but I didn’t. I hugged him tighter and while he cried, finally, I did, too.

I said something about how great Christmas is, and what makes it so special is that it only lasts a month, and next year we would hang the lights and put out all the decorations again. George released his grip and I placed him on the floor. Whatever he’d been feeling seemed to have passed, and he went back down the stairs ready to play.

That night, after the kids and Sam were in bed, I stood in the living room and stared at the colorful lit Christmas tree with the amber glowing yellow star on top. Tomorrow I would unstring the lights and Sam would drag it out to the curb. Then we would vacuum up the stray pine needles and put the kids’ craft table back in its proper place by the window. This time tomorrow, the room would be dark. There would be no more Christmas glow.

I stepped closer to the tree, wondering how it could have such a hold over me. It was just a tree with lights on it. And it would be back next year, just like every other year. New Years’ Eve was in two days. I wanted to look at my calendar, plan my year. I wanted to get back to my 4:00 AM writing sessions and afternoon workouts. I wanted to put Christmas behind me.

I turned off the lights. See you next year, tree.

—

Until next week,

Charlie