putting the 'mass' back in 'christmas(s)'.

last year at this time we were crushed by a snowstorm; the streets were swollen with snow for days, but it was ok, no one was really going anywhere anyway.

right now we're having a bit of a thaw, and this is the first not-completely-white christmas we've had in buffalo in a number of years.

funny what a difference a year makes. christmas, last year, was one of the first times in months i had spoken to or seen my family after they had kicked me out of the house. i was shocked to see how old they looked. people can age in four or five months. or maybe it was just that i hadn't realized that they were getting older until the lifelong images of them that i've been holding in my head really came smack up against reality for the first time. your eyes tend to gloss over ageing process when you look at someone everyday.

i never intended to spend christmas with my folks that year. i was still mad at them for showing me the door and giving me the boot. i don't know what it was that made me stick around; maybe it was the memory of bygone christmases, that, though they shrink back into the past, still dangle within sight, like a sprig of mistletoe above a doorway. i love the christmases of my childhood; i'd give anything to run into them again. going through the doorway of my parents house and hanging about seemed the only way to do it.

now, as i get older, the excitement of christmas morning fades: supposedly i am too old to play with toys now, but the real reason i don't ask for any is because there aren't any good ones in the toy aisle anymore. the prospect of presents thrills me less and less. to be honest, i could go without gifts altogether, as long as i had the people i love around me. (although, i have to stop myself here and say that the clothes i received this year came at the right time to the right fellow -- i haven't had any new clothes in years, or at least that's what the holes my jeans seem to say when anyone looks at them...) but really...i have no burning desires for "stuff" the way i once did as a kid. there's stuff i want; i might buy it for myself, or i may never get it, but i'm not breaking down over it.

the thing i'm loving more and more about christmas are these things: seeing people, friends, family members, anyone that i don't get to normally see and running into them at the holidays, and spending a little time with them, or a lot, depending on how busy they are, catching up and reminiscing. it helps to know that those people are never lost, though you might have no clue where they are or what they're doing throughout the rest of the year.

i also can't get enough of giving people exactly the gift they never knew they wanted but can't stop smiling over. it makes christmas shopping tough, laborious, torturous -- but it has never not been worth the effort. i love giving presents. as a kid, i never thought it was possible to enjoy giving someone else a gift. i sure as hell never thought i would enjoy it so much, and certainly never thought i'd enjoy it more than getting something i wanted. the gifts i've given that i feel the worst about have been gifts that never went to good and joyful use. but there is nothing like the feeling of matching the perfect gift with the perfect person. of course, i hate paying money -- i am poor, and a pack of gum at the convenient store would sting my pocketbook.............but for christmas, it's worth it. there have been christmases where i couldn't buy gifts, and those have been some of the most depressing, sickening christmases i've ever had.

i love christmas; i love everything about it. i love the broken taboo of red and green right next to each other; i love snow on the ground, frosted windows, the stuff that lyrics to holiday music is made of. and yes, i even love the holiday music. its the only time we ever get to listen to jazz in abundance (and now, whenever i hear jazz of any kind, i can't help but think of christmas), and the greatest vocalists in pop music history always turn up to lend their voices to the season. christmas is perpetual. there is always a Christmas Carole, there are always chestnuts roasting, there is always Peter Billingsly, always roast beast, always a tree that glows in the living room all through the night, the anchor of our christmas morning.

this is the darkest, coldest time of the year, and yet a celebration, a high water mark. and even if we can't count back through each christmas with a perfect memory, still, somehow we know it isn't the same as it was way back when. Christmas is a paradox. it is cyclical, ever returning, but also cumulative. its meaning is abstract from the act, the ritual of christmas; christmas itself is a memory. at its most basic, it celebrates the paradox of the Incarnation -- of God becoming flesh. for two thousand years it has been gaining the momentum of meaning it now has, accumulating barnacles of significance, or thick, twisting ivies that cling and add to the ritual. some argue that it obscures the true meaning of christmas. i think it makes it more interesting, garnishes it, seasons it and, at last allows us to see the nature of something that changes, and is yet perpetual.

sitting here, in an unseasonably thawed buffalo, at my family's house, laughing with the parents i vowed to never speak to again, watching them open my presents on a rainy christmas sunday is revealing. they are older. i am wiser. it is nothing like last year, or the year before it. but today, christmas present, is christmas, and a day of remembering. it is a day of honoring the past, remembering through, and around and with the lore of the season. christmas present is inflected by christmas past, and i hold it dear for what it has been. and i wonder at what a different thing, a changed and new thing it will be, when it happens upon us again.



merry christmas to all, and to all a good night.