The Big Disclaimer: This reflection can come across as self-serving and whine-ridden, and of course despondency is a foundational sin to take to the Sacrament of Reconciliation on a regular basis. There’s always a keen appreciation that being able to walk in to a store and buy (or receive) a kraut cabbage is a modern miracle of our society, and so is having a long weekend in a dry kitchen to cook and eat it in. The point is that maybe someone out there reading this might feel a little less alone in their experience of what holidays can be like. -M

A holiday is like a rushing river cutting crosswise to the main path. The idea is to carry the gear, lay out plans and backup plans and more backup plans as little sticks and twigs, lay them out in a bridge, and then very softly step by step inch out across the river and reach solid ground on the other side and then climb up and away from the river bank. It’s a rope trick. And if the sticks and twigs hold up, then there might be some nice scenery along the climb over and some nice people on the way.

One tool in the kit is to mark the date three days after the holiday. Once the celebration is over, that is when someone can skid and fall backwards off the bank and be really downcast. This year that bottom-out happened three days after on the 28th. That day was dedicated to Little Wins, something to work on every hour of the day. The 24 short prayers of St. John Chrysostom gives us one prayer per hour around the clock to work with, so I made a chart of hours and copied in the prayers in Slavonic and put that in a clear page protector to carry everywhere, and set a timer as a signal to move on to the next prayer in an hour. Anyone can choose their own prayer set though; there are heartfelt little one-sentence prayers all over the Psalms, for example. These are a real benefit, as meditation on the Stair Master at the gym to feeling stressed by the noise level on the bus to waking up worried at night.

Before the holiday there was research to track down the exact schedule of church services and events and things to do, and the bus schedules to get there. That way there’s no uncertainty about what to do with spare time.

One perennial favorite is a live music event with demonstration instruments to test out and play. This year the live music was fine, but for once absolutely no one was in the classrooms and that part of the building felt empty, as if we weren’t really supposed to be back there. Out front during the performances it was all young couples and happy kids running around. After about 10 minutes my spirits fell enough that I had to leave.

Earlier that day was the office party, folks who brought their families and introduced new boyfriends and girlfriends, and announced their engagements and baby due dates. One colleague stood up with a toast to say “Nothing matters as much as family. Nothing! Why, you hear about these people who don’t have children; they just go off and live for themselves and die all alone — it’s just inhuman.” She and I are on a very friendly basis, so I gave her a little nudge and smile and said “Are you describing me?” She waved me off and said “You have all of us. For you, family is this whole department.” She repeated her toast for everyone at the table, and as they applauded warmly I slipped away and went home.

At one church, the friendliest congregation member greeted me to ask me how I was spending Christmas. “Praying a lot,” I told her, and showed her my chart of 24 hourly prayers. She described how her family all travel to be together, and how wonderful that was every year. I gave her warm congratulations on her large family event and how much the relatives all enjoy each other’s company. “There is nothing like it,” she said. “John and I and the kids look forward to visiting them too. There is no feeling in the world like relaxing on the sofa, watching your parents and aunties and uncles and cousins, and we can just all bask in one another’s company.” I kept congratulating her, agreeing on the importance of family, and my eyes picked that moment to start pouring tears. It soon became obvious enough that she stopped at a loss for words, and asked “So… is your… do you have any… are you from this state?” I explained No to all of the above, and she very courteously went and started a conversation with someone else. Now here’s the thing: she has now had this same exchange with me for five Christmases in five years. I went off to wash my face and go sit outside for a bit, and had a heart to heart talk with, well, my heart, saying “You know, it’s ok. You don’t have to come to this church any more. We can just go home now.”

Christmas Eve is my most holy night of the year, so I picked out a 5:00 pm Vigil service and got all dressed up to go and was feeling happy about it. Then on my phone I found a series of voicemail messages and texts. Please call us! It’s urgent! It was a dear family with wee kidlets, and they had lost a valuable item. They were out of town visiting their folks for the holiday, and really needed help. It was raining hard by then and the streets were completely deserted, but with a flashlight I retraced their path including a creepy alley, looking everywhere for their lost item. After an hour I just didn’t know where else to search, so I had to text them that their item was gone. Well, it turns out that they had called another family, who found the item right away, and now everyone was off at church with their relatives! By then it was too late for Vigil, and I had to go home and change and get dry and warm up. So that was Christmas Eve.

But one nice thing was a trip to Fruit & Folks on December 22. Before their holiday break I picked up as many super-sized sturdy vegetables as I could carry home — including the indulgence of a Kraut Cabbage, 39 cents a pound. I brought home the very smallest one, about the size of a basketball. At the cash register the staff just laughed at my purchase. Apparently they were under orders to watch out for Mary, and to give her all her Christmas food for free! Insisting that my money was no good here, they helped me load up and I headed for the bus stop while they waved goodbye.

After toting the food home, as a rest break I watched a Mull Monastery cooking video on YouTube, with Father Seraphim Aldea and Mother Abbess Ita. If you would like to watch two lovable monastics in the kitchen, you can search their channel for “When I was a kid in Communist Romania: cooking stew and remembering our childhood.” This hearty chunky stew is meant to fill in wintertime comfort and flavor chimes in their usual monastic diet, which includes little meat and quite possibly no meat at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMLR8a3mNmchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMLR8a3mNmc

With their inspiration, I cooked up the whole gift bounty for the fridge and freezer.

Then I started rewriting an old story about what it was like, to work in a Produce department 40 years ago at a food coop on Christmas Eve, and all the adventures going on with the business and customers, and how the team members pulled together to get through the evening. At our own food coop now, the Produce staff and I got talking about how produce departments were so different back then, and when they asked to read it I promised them a printed copy. They were really happy about it! The Produce manager offered to post it in the break room. I told them he could tell folks it was written by the Mary who walks there every night to buy a refill gallon of filtered water from their machine. “Mary?” he said. “Everybody here knows exactly who you are.”

Meanwhile I go around practicing an underrated Russian Christmas carol of the Blessed Mother singing her baby Jesus to sleep. On YouTube the search title is

“Берег Запредельного. NARTANA DESHE. Колыбельная Богородицы.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiAYJxyNCVM&list=RDwiAYJxyNCVM&start_radio=1

The guest soloist (and ticket seller for the show) is Valeriia Psiukalova, and the folk ensemble is called Azure-Golden Shore of the Beyond. Apparently they are followers of Sri Chinmoy and that tradition of chanting, but they also interpret Russian spiritual songs.

Then for last thing at night as bedtime reading there’s a secondhand bookstore discovery: St. Thérèse of Lisieux, The Last Conversations before her death in 1897. It’s normal to think of Thérèse as a sentimental girl tossing flower petals at statues and writing poetry dismissed as saccharine rhymes, but the real medical story shows a 24 year old with a titanium character submitting to 19th-century interventions that enormously magnified her suffering. (She was also prescribed morphine injections throughout her illness, but died without receiving a single one; the Mother Superior at that time didn’t believe in pain remedies for nuns, and Thérèse was adamant about obedience to monastic rules.) Her sweetness and humor and determination to cheer her companions shine all through the book.

Christmas is hard for many many people. Like a sailor with the sea or a farmer with the sky, we know to not turn our back on it and to regard it as a formidable adversary that takes planning and work. It’s a relief that this one is over for another year, with help from God and good people.