Poetry for a Christmas Eve Monday

Joyous Noel.  

This is somewhere between narrative prose and unrhymed poetry, and is for the older among us who are still kids at heart.  

Hope you enjoy.

The Stocking

In the beginning

A stocking was left

For Santa to fill

It might have been small, but it grew in the night

Able to take on candies, fruits and toys

And no matter where I left it

It was always on the foot of my bed

First thing Christmas morning

Then came the day Santa stopped leaving the stocking on my bed

The stocking I left was still empty on Christmas morning

But the gifts that filled the stocking before

Were now under the tree

While I was disappointed, I was also proud

For I realized Santa was treating me more like a grownup

And outgrowing the need for such a childish tradition

Years have passed and the family that hung their stockings alongside mine

Have moved on to new families and lives

We speak of Christmases past, of trees and gifts and dinners

Of the joy of being together then

The sadness at the loss of some

And the happiness that is the holiday now

And on the night before Christmas

As I have done every year

A stocking is still left

For Santa to fill

For I never outgrew that childish tradition

And to some, there might seem to be nothing in it come Christmas morning

But for me, it is always filled to the rim

With memories and the joy of the holiday season

                                                                                         © 2018 Lauren Swartzmiller 

The Holiday Spirit

For those who read my last entry, you know things are less than perfect in my life.  Despite that, however, I have managed a bit of holiday spirit without the use of spirits.  The only mood elevators I’ve used are holiday music, decorating and baking – better than any drug.

Even with the best of years, it’s not always easy to maintain the joy of the season that we likely felt as kids.  Things were happier, unburdened, and new even when money was tight.  Gifts weren’t just the joy of ripping through paper, but the anticipation of what was there just for us and the look on others’ faces for the gifts we chose just for them.  We looked forward to meals because they were the best, not to mention the additional sweets along the way, and it was okay to have more than we should.  Chores for the day were always before the celebration, not so much after.  Ice was for skating on or at least sliding across if you couldn’t stay up on skates.  We delighted in snow and the greater the accumulation, the better.

Years later, there’s a sense of been there and done that.  The weight of our lives and the troubles of the world sometimes make it hard to to get into the holiday spirit.  The world is not as ideal as we might remember and hope it would be.  The innocence that we approached the holidays with about gifts, food and the weather have been replaced with the realities associated with them.  For some, it’s no presents, no food, and having to deal with the elements firsthand and not by choice because home is far away or nonexistent.

Yet, the holidays come anyway, and like the Grinch, we can’t stop them from coming just because things are bad and we’re not in the mood for them.  We can try to sabotage them all we want, even if only in our corner of things, and they’ll still come.  It’s a feeling, after all, not just things.  It is a sense of joy and hope, love and peace, if only for a few days.  So, revel in it while it's here.

As for me, the spirit of the season was a little slow in overtaking me, but it did manage to win the battle.  Even though it’s only me without presents or a tree, the lights and decorations are up.  There's eggnog (no booze) tonight, and I’ve planned a good repast for tomorrow from which there will be leftovers for days. Finally, I made a small batch of cookies – chocolate chip from scratch and they came out perfect.  Santa gets first dibs and I’ll deal with the rest.

To all, no matter who you are, no matter what your beliefs, I wish you happiness and the grandest of days now and in the year ahead.

My Secret Santa Secret

For the first time in a long time, I declined to join in on the office ritual of Secret Santa. I had the genuine excuse of not really having the finances this year to part with the money for a gift for someone who isn't family or a dear friend. But in fact, I don't like the whole concept of Secret Santa gift giving, have never liked it, and have some reasons for my dislike which I think are quite valid.

The first is that Secret Santa isn't. By whatever method is used, each person gets the name of another person in the office. It's then becomes a strategic guessing game to figure out who got who. Some will readily part with the information, especially if they can find out who got them in the process. Others will try to covet their person's name, but won't succeed. I always tried to be in the latter group. I could keep it a secret right up until the gifts had to be left out for the the big reveal, when the spies were at their most active. The office needs to know so that when the gifts are opened, they know exactly who gave WHAT to whom. Trust me, with about half the names and by process of elimination, someone other than the person officially keeping tabs will have it all figured out before the gift wrap comes off the boxes.

Then, there's the gift. Now, I've participated in Secret Santa where the person not only writes their name, but also a few suggestions for gift-giving that are within the allowed cost. But for the most part, I've been in ones when the gift was left up to gift-giver, to someone who doesn't know you and usually will go with the generic "one size fits most occasions" gift.  Most people are overwhelmed enough already by shopping for family and close friends.  The coworker that they rarely interact with may not necessarily be in line for that thoughtful gifting process after everything else is being said and done and I can understand that completely. 

The mentality of everyone should get a gift so they don't feel left out is for children and I'm not a child.  Quite frankly, I'd rather get nothing than a gift that only fills a work-social obligation.  Some would say that's harsh and potentially creates bad feelings in the workplace.  Perhaps, but I doubt it'll last much beyond the first day of the new year.

In case you want to call me a Scrooge or a Grinch for my terrible work gift attitude, hold off for a second.  Want to know where the money went that I didn't spend on a Secret Santa gift?  I didn't spend it on myself.  It got added to the money that I give every year to local charities, to places where I know it will do good things for people who need it more than I do.  It's a little better than giving or receiving another box of toiletries, a snow globe, a pen set, a scarf, or any number of other tchotchke that would only end up taking up space in a closet or other storage space, don't you think?