Every year, Christmas is different. This year, sick for weeks with some kind of crud rendering me sick and tired of being sick, I am staying home. Though I am the only human here, I have plenty of good company both feline and canine.
In years past, I always spent the holiday with my immediate family which, over the last two decades, shrunk from already small, to me alone when my mom died 27 December, 2011. And this is what I want to discuss.
I’m not one that tends to get lonely. With the dog/cat rescue, I have a lot of work to do here each day which keeps me busy and birding, my passion, is more a thing I am versus a thing I do even when I’m busy doing it.
Last year, I spent Christmas up in the high mountains looking for winter species, and likewise on New Years. I have a special place that is dear to my heart and I always feel wonderful there. So at the holidays, I generally spend Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve and New Years Day at this spot. Sometimes I take a doggie, sometimes I don’t.
Last Christmas, I walked through the forest, wrapped up against cold weather listening for, finding and photographing birds. I didn’t see but perhaps two other people in the many hours I was there. It was delightful. This is my personal defense against loneliness during the holidays, and particularly so on days when most of the nation is busy with family I no longer have. I find I can’t think about birds and think about feeling lonely at the same time.
This year is a little different. Because I am still sick, no going out in the cold for me. I had to skip the Christmas Bird Count. I limited my shopping to less than an hour, then went back to bed. The extent of decorating was hanging some beautiful hand-blown Christmas balls in windows and putting a lit wreathe I made on the door and a wreath above the large, very, very old arched living room window with it’s runny and uneven glass. I planned ahead by checking out Deep Space 9, season one, from the library. But this all feels wrong, somehow, this year. I was really feeling lonely, especially after such limited contact with human beings in the last 8 weeks (other than online).
I bought a lot of raffle tickets from the library this year. It not only benefits the library, but I always win something which is sort of a surprise Christmas present—the only one I will get. This year, I actually won four things. Pretty cool. Coffee, wine, a pasta basket and a gift certificate to a local restaurant. I was actually planning on having Asian food tomorrow so the gift certificate can wait. I usually buy something for myself at Christmas, but this year I donated to Bernie, a wildlife rescue and a few other places. That felt great, too.
But you what felt really cool? When I went out to empty the trash, there was a little Christmas bag set in the middle of the hood on my car. What a surprise! Someone actually thought of me on Christmas! It was from an up-the-street neighbor and her two sons. Great coffee and another bottle of wine. Perfect!
There are millions of people like me who will spend the holiday alone. You might have a neighbor doing that. I really want to encourage people to invite these folks into your home for Christmas, or, if that is not possible, take them a wonderful Christmas dinner plate from your table and share a few words and thoughts with them. For people like me, this might be just the thing that helps to connect them to the world around them on what can be an otherwise very lonely day.
There are kind and compassionate people here at DK. I hope you will share that tomorrow with people who really could use a little cheer.
For those of you that do not celebrate the holiday, have a fantastic day, anyway! And for those of you that do, I wish you the very best Christmas ever.
PS: If there are formatting errors, please forgive me. I’m still trying to get the hang of DK5.