Photography by Lori K. Tate
I broke my own rule the other day. Talk to me long enough and you’ll learn that I have all kinds of rules for myself that don’t make any sense whatsoever when they’re spoken out loud. For example, I won’t eat a snack at the movies until the actual movie starts. I won’t let a pole, fence or rail come between me and the person I’m walking with for fear that it represents something coming between our friendship, and I only wear black when I’m working out. (Okay, I’m starting to bend on that last one because I found a sweet jumpsuit at Target recently that was, you guessed it, black.)
The truth is I’m bending a lot of my own rules lately, and it’s probably a good thing, as no one deserves to live under my self-created tyranny. The decree that I flat out crushed the other day was my Christmas music rule. As someone who adores Thanksgiving and feels that the holiday is slowly but surely being swallowed by a giant elf, I don’t intentionally listen to Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving. (The same goes for Christmas movies, although I caved the other day and watched Santa Girl on Netflix, which was pretty good on the cheesy holiday movie scale even though the Jack Frost character was super creepy.)
Anyway, in an effort to keep 2019 on its “didn’t see that coming” trajectory, I threw my Christmas music rule out the window and cranked up a holiday mix on my computer the other night. As I sat in my office nestled beside my space heater, I felt a little bit at peace. It felt so good that I wondered why I ever had this stupid rule in the first place, but I know why.
I like anticipation. I like looking forward to things just as much as the actual things — sometimes more. (This is why Amazon Prime is deadly to my bank account. For a whole day I get to look forward to getting something I don’t need and probably don’t want arriving. Good thing the UPS store is at the end of the street for returns.) The same is true with vacations. I love planning and dreaming about what I’m going to do when I go out of town much more than actually going out of town.
That said, you can see why looking forward to Christmas is a big deal to me. And for me, the day that the excitement is most pronounced is the day before Thanksgiving. It’s like standing at the edge of the pool preparing to jump in. You know the temperature will be cold initially, but you also know how fun it will be to frolic around in the water.
The day before Thanksgiving is much the same. Sure, the holidays will be stressful and exhausting, and it’s a given that someone you’re related to is going to say something ridiculous — more than once. However, you also know how fun it is to sing Christmas songs in the car, wear a goofy Santa hat, drive around looking at twinkling lights and watch A Charlie Brown Christmas for the 50th time. (I’ll never grow tired of Linus saying “lights please” before he recites the Christmas story.) It’s a big swirl of red and green cheer, and though it can be messy, it’s the best way I can think of to wrap up the year, especially this one.
I know that the holidays are going to be hard for my family this season and the seasons to come. A big part of me wants to fly to an island for Thanksgiving where the only turkey is on a club sandwich at the bar, but that’s not how it’s going to play out. Instead, I’m taking my favorite day of the year minute by minute, even though some of those minutes might make me cry. I have to remember that even though we’ve lost so much this past year, we’ve gained a lot of goodness and for that I’m grateful.
So on Wednesday, I’m going to play Christmas music as I prepare for Thanksgiving. It’s my new rule, and I have no plans on breaking it anytime soon.