Some Words About the Christmas Spirit and Myself

On Festivus (December 23), I was talking to my therapist. I mentioned that I'm anticipating a post-Christmas depression to begin on the night of Christmas. It often happens. In the same conversation, I talked about how I look for the right gifts for people throughout the year and how I keep the spirit of Christmas in my heart. He asks me why I get depressed, then. I told him it's because the world doesn't keep the spirit of Christmas through the year. He told me that that's why "elves" like me exist.

That stuck with me. Then, today, my friend Danielle called me "my personification of Christmas". It got me to thinking. You see, I have my tattoo of a heart with a stake of holly through it because "A Christmas Carol" is my favorite book and my brother designed the tattoo (since I wanted a tattoo in reference to my favorite book.) I'm not just one of those "idiots" Scrooge spoke of who goes around with "merry Christmas" on his lips. I'm someone who keeps the Christmas spirit in his heart throughout the year.

To me, Christmas is more than a day or even a season. To quote Henry Corwin from the Twilight Zone episode "Night of the Meek": "Christmas is another thing finer than that. Richer, finer, truer, and it should come with patience and love, charity, compassion." It's, as Scrooge's nephew Fred says, "a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

If I were to say that one thing in particular is my core value, it's the Christmas spirit and it would be in reference to those two quotes. That's not to say that I don't mistreat people, nor is it to say I'm the most charitable person in the world. I'm as flawed as anyone else, and then some. It's just to say that I actively strive to keep the Christmas spirit and its virtues in my heart, year-round. Whether my actions show it or not is far from my knowledge, since I can only see it from my side. I just hope that they do. I hope that I'm not being hypocritical when going on and on about such things.

All of this is to say that, though a bit of depression is trying to set in, I know that it won't be as bad as before. With the perspective that my therapist and my friend Danielle have put into my head, and with the Christmas Spirit that people like my dad hold through the year, I feel content with the ending of the day. Because, as I said before, Christmas is more than a day or a season.

With that said, merry Christmas to all. May the spirits Christmas of past, present, and yet to come live in us all, beyond the season itself.

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