So what kind Of Christmas will I have, anyway?

This year, I thought I would have the kind of Christmas where I would sit by the tree on Christmas Eve putting the last touches on beautifully-appointed presents, while a turkey roasts slowly in the oven.  I will strum my guitar and sing “Silent Night.” My loyal friends will struggle towards my cabin, through a howling blizzard, laden with gifts and brandy-laced egg nog.

            Whoops, I just remembered that I can’t play guitar. Plus, I have a vocal range of three notes, all of them off-key.

            Okay, so no guitar and singing. Instead, I will put on my Three Tenors Christmas CD while Bill goes out into the boreal forest to find a perfectly-shaped evergreen which he will bring home by dog team while humming “Oh Tannanbaum” in a throaty lumberjack’s voice. I will lovingly hang ornaments, each of which has a symbolic connection to a beatific past Christmas.

            Well, we don’t actually have a tree because we have propane lights and there is no safe place to put one. Plus, I don’t really like decorating. The last time I did it, was in 1991 when I bought a little countertop tree that I put out every year no matter disheveled it got, but that we finally threw out last spring while engaged in an uholy fit of de-clutterization.

            No tree and no guitar, then, but I will lovingly curl the ribbons on the perfect gifts for those I love, imagining their faces of delight on Christmas morning.

            Um, have to jettison the gift idea too. I gave up Christmas shopping and gift-giving a few years ago when I found myself stressed beyond belief, frantically running from store to store, looped tapes of Christmas songs blasting my eardrums, buying presents out of a sense of obligation, not love.

            Okay, no tree, no guitar, no gifts but egg-nog with brandy and Gluhwein to warm the cockles of our hearts and set our souls astir while we raise our glasses and break out into a spontaneous rendition of “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman.”

            Ooooooo, that won’t work either. I quit drinking many years ago, not long after the Christmas where we forgot the turkey in the oven and nearly burned the house down.

            So, no tree, no guitar, no presents and no egg-nog, then.

            But there will be friends. I will cook a turkey dinner and invite people into my home. Others will invite me into theirs and we will break bread together many times. Even though I don’t give gifts, I will find ways of letting people know how much I love them and how grateful I am that they are in my life. I will fill up my house with fresh flowers and put out the Christmas tablecloth that my mother embroidered 40 years ago. We will walk the dogs through a landscape covered with snow. We will open our hearts and we will laugh.

            There will be peace.

            Merry Christmas, everybody.