Merry Christmas!!
It is an odd holiday for me this year: Washington doesn't have a white Christmas this year, and as recently as last week in fact saw daily highs in the 60s and 70s. And for an Illinois native who would expect to see snow drifts at least knee-high by now, to have not yet pulled out my winter coat this late in December is a novel experience to say the least.
For me this year, Christmas has been an interesting collection of both what is there, and what is not. Some of it has made it harder to feel Christmasy -- the unseasonable weather being a big factor for me, although I know all my friends from California who never saw snow til going to college in Chicago are laughing at me right now. :) But Washington in its own way this year has wrestled with a similar dilemma over how to treat the holiday. On the one hand, with tours of the White House closed, a long-standing tradition, one which I am now doubly-glad to have enjoyed last year, of seeing the White House Christmas trees is on hiatus. Yet, the trees on the Ellipse attract as strong a crowd as ever, and the downtown light display on Pennsylvania Avenue and along F-street seems bigger to me than last year.
Last night I attended the Christmas Eve service at National Cathedral; it is such a magnificent setting, especially during this time of year, and with the similarities to Rockefeller Chapel on U of C's campus, provides a small measure of the comfort of home for me. Dean Baxter, who presided over the service, had a lovely thought: he had distributed to the children at the service (with enough left over, bless 'em, for those like me who remain children at heart :) ) Christmas ornaments: they were little blue marbles painted to look like globes of the world. And his sermon was a beautiful message about the joy of the season being something meant to benefit and enrich all the world, not one particular church, or only those of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And the connection with the marbles came from an idea that had occured to him while decorating a tree with Christmas ball ornaments, and seeing a similarity to a globe owned by one of the children in the house.
The nation's capital is slowly healing; on Sunday, I went out to the Pentagon and took more pictures for my chronology of destruction and rebirth: I am trying to create a collection, from that week, and then periodically every few weeks or months after to show the changes. All the damaged sections have been torn down. Now, there are several cranes set up and a flury of construction going on. In the front of the building, a rather expansive new bus terminal has opened up in the last week, and now much of the public transit traffic that had been rerouted away in security precautions, is back to normal servicing the Pentagon. Someone even put a tree on the roof of the building near the constuction area.
In another break from Christmas tradition, I have not sent out my usual abundance of cards (historically that counts for whole percentage point traffic for the post office), lest the DC postmark cause heart palpitations for my friends over lingering fears of anthrax. But I have received several from some very good friends, whose personal messages have done much to lift my spirits and spread the holiday cheer to me. And today, I opened a new CD of Christmas music from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It tells a story, beginning with a command from god to an angel to "Go down to the earth and bring back to me the one thing that best represents everthing good that has been done in the name of this day." And the CD chronicles this angel's journey, concluding with his return to heaven where he "placed in the Lord's hand, the wish of a soul for the happiness of another."
As I read this in the album booklet, a tear came to my eye, as I thought about my friends who shared a seasonal moment with me when I went back to Chicago briefly a few weeks ago, and those who have helped me to smile out here in Virginia, with holiday greetings or fresh-baked goodies. And I count myself lucky that on this day of giving and goodwill, that I have already received the greatest gift of all: your love and friendship.
However you choose to celebrate this December 25th in accordance with your traditions, or not at all, depending on your faith, thank you for being a positive part of my life.
Merry Christmas, with all the best wishes for the coming New Year.