“The Christmas season–a mix of emotions, feelings, anxieties, joy and appreciation.” —Diarist A33, Dec. 15, 2018.
December 15, the next-to-last Saturday before Christmas, dawned chilly and misty in Muncie. Many of our volunteer diarists had full days of holiday preparation or celebration in store. And these activities, as retold by our contributors, carried a wide range of emotional charges–from joy in family, tenderness, and nostalgia (albeit mixed with annoyance)–to homesickness, sorrow, and reminders of loss.
Most of these diaries are noteworthy for their unusual amount of movement, as our writers hustle around Muncie on late-season errands, or drive to the airport to pick up college-aged children, or go out to observe their seasonal rituals with family and friends.
“Neither one of us are thrilled with the idea of shopping with thousands of best friends in the stores of Muncie,” writes one diarist. But upon arriving at the Muncie Mall, he is pleased to see that the stores are full and the shoppers lively. “I’m not a fan of crowds but I like to see brick & mortar businesses doing plenty of business.” Another writer makes a similar observation, finding the mall “busier with more shoppers for the holidays. It’s pretty obvious our mall is suffering from cheaper competition from the big box stores and online options, but tonight it is attracting a Saturday night crowd of holiday shoppers.”
Family, with its attendant joys, commitments, frustrations, and complications, is a major theme of these diaries. Fulfilling her aging mother’s wish for a “real Christmas” sends a writer off on multiple errands to gather decorations. The process evokes memories and registers change, with a tinge of regret. “A real Christmas means decorating and I have been working through decorating the house over the last couple weeks in my head,” she writes. “We have never not had a fireplace and mantle, and an open staircase, during the past nearly 25 years, until now. My dad always put up lights outside of the house and I loved it and tried to continue that. This year that will be limited to lights around the upstairs deck.” For her and for others, decorating is a form of taking care. This dynamic is even more pronounced as another diarist takes his kids to decorate his mother’s room in a long-term care facility, stopping en route “4 times at 4 stores to get more things for this holiday decking.”
Care-taking is an expression of love. It is also a form of labor, not infrequently accompanied by frustration, annoyance, or resentment that co-exists inextricably with tenderness and commitment. One writer, mother of a 7-year-old boy, rides the emotional crests and valleys of this care-taking, with its particular seasonal flavors, on this diary day. She is charmed at her son’s daily ritual of counting off the day’s remaining until school vacation, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. She is vexed at his (and his friend’s) moodiness as they drive to the Muncie Children’s Museum’s Great Elf Adventure. She wryly observes: “I find that aside from the bribery and extortion, a lot of parenting is taking children to have a good time and making memories that are in reality fraught with struggle and resistance. This is no exception. There is enough arguing on the way that when we are greeted by the entrance elf, his jolly tone is not appreciated by anyone.”
Holiday rituals also trigger memories of the departed, or exacerbate feelings of loneliness. And the holidays can sharpen the pains of depression.
“…I offer to help my mom get her remaining outdoor lights up,” one diarist writes. “Since my dad passed a couple years ago, this can be a bit of a chore as it involves trees, ladders and an improvised ‘hook’ device for draping lights over high branches.” Another notes that an annual holiday party with friends is bittersweet because one of the group had lost his mother in the past year. “He gave me a set of her holiday earrings and pin, which I was glad to wear in her honor.”
In a heart-rending diary, a grandmother writes movingly of her family’s estrangement–its pangs triggered when she sees some pajamas in a dollar store that would fit her granddaughter. “And I break down crying,” she writes. “While walking to find soup, I think of all the missed holidays I’ve had with my granddaughters and how sad I am. I feel like I wear a mask most days. On one hand, I’m a successful business owner with a great personal life and things to be thankful for, but deep down, my heart is heavy and broke.”
Another writer, contending with anxiety and depression, spends most of the day sleeping. “Christmas isn’t a great time of year always–even when it’s not super-dark or super-cold,” she writes. Her day takes a positive turn when she tunes into some inspirational Christian music, with voices from countries around the globe “all singing–reminding of the truth.”
Whether giving joy or stress or sadness–or some measure of all of these–the presence of the widely shared seasonal rhythm of the holidays, for believers and non-believers, marks a strong commonality across the diaries. Perhaps the only thing more pervasive is the weather. For a good many diarists, the day draws to a close with them driving home, carefully, in a steady rain.
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