The work of Christmas.

Some of choir is singing for both services and if Julia didn’t have to sit through both services, plus the early call for rehearsal, I’d sing both. There is a song in the second service—Sing we now of Christmas—that is evocative of the dark night and the quiet before celebration. I was happy to do it at choir practice.

A new choir song that we are learning for Christmas Eve.  There are two services that night.  7 and 10, or 10:30. This is the only time of year when we are in the church at night.  The stained glass windows are dark from the inside, no color except from the outside. I don’t notice the stained glass windows that often, but when they are dark. I see them clearly. 

The Work of Christmas is a song, according to our director, that Everyone is singing. The message of the song is that the work of Christmas begins after the tinsel is off the tree and the shepherds are back tending their sheep. It does seem like the perfect Christmas song in this year of tumult and chaos.  A time when we have so much work to do when these holidays are finished.

I know, I know.

I’ve had trouble writing about this year for a holiday card and as a result there is no holiday card right now. For our family, the year has been good and I am thankful for the living that we have right now.  Julia is moderately happy, Cheshire, et al. are doing very well, Ed and I have aches and pains but not out of the ordinary, as my doctor said just last week, “for someone my age.” And we are happy together. But the greater world, near and very far, the community close and that which is far, is suffering.  And we who live in this country are to blame for so much suffering and grief.  Every day brings a new assault on my/our senses, every day the worst feels closer. 

Yesterday’s NYTimes reported that the Trump administration plans to ramp up efforts to strip some naturalized Americans of their citizenship. Yeah, they say they will mainly go after some “worst of the worst”— people who cheated or lied on their citizenship documents, people who committed crimes.  I know the work of those naturalization documents—the forms are not easy and mistakes, honest mistakes, are easy to make. What if we made some mistake?

And the term “remigration” is being used by far-right groups as a euphemism for mass deportation or ethnic cleansing of immigrants and citizens of non-majority ethnic backgrounds. The word is sprinkled into the administration’s rhetoric. I have raised a naturalized citizen with a non-majority ethnic background who has disabilities. And my mind goes to Germany’s forced sterilization law of 1933 and the mass killings of 1939 of people with disabilities. 

Dark. Yes, I know. Dark and haunting. I wake in the middle of the night wondering what I would do and where I would go with Julia if . . . .

Irrational fear? Paranoia?  Perhaps, but nothing has stopped this administration from plucking people, citizens and those on their way to a local courthouse for citizenship proceedings, from sidewalks, schools, jobs, homes. Nothing stopped the GOP goons from breaking car windows as the person inside shouts of their status in this country.  Plucked from their everyday lives to be detained for hours if they are lucky, days or weeks or months if they are not.  What if it was Julia?

I cannot, at least at this moment, be the optimist that Ed continues to be.  He sees the political climate as the reason to do work that must be done—organize, make a movement, demonstrate, vote, make change happen. Somerville, MA, became the first city in the U.S. to vote for divesting from Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.  He put a lot of effort into that movement and he sees it as the beginnings of something greater. I don’t see that yet, or even if it is, will a greater movement happen in time.

I know some people who have lost jobs due to the federal cuts. Those cuts are just the tip of the iceberg coming at us. The possibility of losing vital health benefits and the services that a Julia depends on is not impossible to imagine. Covid shutdown was awful for Julia, what would the close of her day center be like? 

And for those reasons, I have not sent out holiday greetings. Maybe I will see some light for Chinese New Year or Valentine’s Day. Maybe.

However, however, however, looking around my house and watching me the past week, anyone might think I was blissfuly unaware of much outside of holiday preparation. 

A week ago, we went to Mount Auburn Cemetery’s Solstice celebration and night time walk.  It was stunning, and we were lucky that the weather was brisk but very walkable. It was the kind of art event that seeps deep into a soul and I loved it. 

And then we bought a tree to decorate, Ed and Julia created our own impressive light display in the front windows and I put up garland and a lot of candles. For the last three days, I’ve been baking cookies and poppyseed cake all day and into the nights. We’ve been lighting our Chanukah’s lights and tomorrow we’ll celebrate with Cheshire’s family. Tonight, I’ll bag and box up my confection output as thank-you to so many people who have done so much for us this year. 

And just today, I bought a kinda’ ugly, but not too ugly, Christmas sweater. I’ve refrained from ever intentionally walking around in ugly clothes.  Possibly kinda’ uptight of me but it seems that the Ugly Sweater Holiday Service is the Sunday before Christmas Eve, and I have finally decided to join ‘em. 

And so, so much much like the planting of spring bulbs the first fall after David died, I do not, cannot give up to fear or grief or paranoia. Those parrot tulips planted that autumn reminded me of my own optimism and persistence every year that they came up and graced my Madison front garden.  So, we will light the Chanukah candles, the solstice and Christmas lights, wrap and unwrap presents, cook and talk, snuggle on the couch to watch movies in candle light and greet the new year. 

Happy fifth night of Chanukah! Chag Sameach!