It’s the Christmas season and I haven’t felt very festive lately. For some reason it I can’t muster it up. It’s like a fake smile, you do it but it’s not real. I don’t even have the energy to pretend.

I used to be so enthusiastic about this time of year, about any holiday that involved family. Now I have the urge to just crawl away and hide till it’s over. It doesn’t feel like “the most wonderful time of the year.”

I have been the chief decorator for some time now (when my mother discovered I wouldn’t blow up the house). So last year I saved up from every paycheck to buy us a new one and I was so proud I could give it to my mother. That was a good day. So maybe it’s because I’ve been sick recently, or maybe it’s a sincere amount of self-pity, but I can’t seem to muster the enthusiasm to put it up.

This will be the first Christmas without my dog, without my best friend. I know I need a life when I consider a dog to be my closest (non human) companion. I also know I need a life when I look on my iTunes and realize I’ve played one song 468 times. Probably more as I listen to it now.

I guess I don’t feel like Christmas, don’t feel the magic or the warmth, and my mother and I have been trying to survive ourselves, I can’t even give back, as everyone should this time of year. I was taught Christmas was for the time for open hearts and peace, the time to give and never ask for anything in return. Now it’s all about presents and how much you can spend…. Christmas used to be a divine holiday, what ever happened to it?

My father’s family is Jewish, and Hanukkah has already begun, if not already ended. The Menorah/Chanukkah have the most beautiful symbolism. It stands as the light of the nation but also as a tribute to the lamp oil lasting eight days in a time of darkness.
One candle, the “servant candle” or shammash is the candle in the middle, which is used to light the others each night.

I’m shunned in the Jewish religion being a “shiksa” well, technically it's a derogatory term that refers to a non-Jewish woman paired with a Jewish man, but I’m there along those lines. I’m a half-breed, which is unclean. It makes me feel a little like an outcast but I’ve never stopped loving the heritage even if it didn’t love me back.

I guess there is something to be said, something to be gained as so many holidays this time of year are all about optimism. It’s all about a peaceful time to look up with hope and to dream about the New Year ahead and all its possibilities.

I want to feel that hope, the warmth, and fling it out to the four corners to everyone I know, and even those I don’t. The season is more, it makes people more then they allow themselves to be. So even though I won’t get anything that comes in paper or in a box, I want peace this year.

So being a Catholic I think I’ll light a candle this season. Drop my coins to the charity box and watch the little light that represents so much…more.

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