As I decorate my house every year for Christmas I turn on Christmas Hymns Pandora Radio. I hate a cheesy Christmas Carol but I love a good, rich hymn. It feels like a celebration of the season, the real reason for the season. I hate consumerism. I don’t go shopping on Black Friday. I mostly don’t go shopping at all during the Christmas season unless it’s from my couch for a specific item I already have in mind that I can find on the World Wide Web and it can be delivered to my doorstep. I’m not a big online shopper the other eleven months of the year. I want to see items and feel items and really know what I’m buying before I swipe my credit card. You could call me old fashioned or you could just say I’m really into authenticism both in people and material goods.
Every year I pull out the box from my garage by myself and I assemble my tree one day and then the next I decorate it. I pull out the stockings, the Christmas Moose (just watch the reel you’ll see him…I can’t explain it otherwise), the mini porch trees, the door mats, the Christmas towels and my Christmas sheets (from TJ Maxx…because who spends money on sheets you only sleep on for a month a year). Once I’ve pulled out the Christmas Moose, the season has begun for me. I love to sit in the glow of my Christmas tree every night of the season (I’m doing that right now as I type this). It’s all red and white. First I hang all the red balls in 4 different materials (sparkly, matte, clear and shiny) in 3 different sizes (small, medium and large). We’re missing quite a few from the original set from a few mishaps that left them in pieces. Then I hang the unique ornaments. All of my ornaments are a gift from someone else, they all hold a story and a memory and they all happen to stick to the colors of my tree. Then I put on the tree skirt and lastly the glittery bow. It’s how I do it every single year. My tree is snowy and glittery and my dad absolutely told me to not buy it because of the mess it will make and then I bought it anyway. There is no greater tradition than every time he comes to my house he comments on how there’s glitter everywhere and he told me not to get this tree. I think he does it in jest just to get on my nerves and I remind him that it’s not his house or his tree and then we laugh.
Decorating my house and my tree is something I find joyful but that wasn’t always the case. There was a year where I had gone through a bad break up like a really, really bad break up the kind most people may never experience in their lives. I thought I knew what heartbreak was. I’d been through it a time or two but this, this was next level. A true gut punch. The kind of thing that changes who you are as a person and you can never go back. So when my first Christmas season arrived where it was time to decorate for Christmas by myself I just really didn’t see the point. Decorating seemed like something full of a lot of reminders especially since a lot of the decorations had been bought to go on someone else’s tree. A season where every television ad is for engagement rings and couples and all the things I used to have but didn’t anymore. My best friend is super into decorating and design and all the things for houses. Her house looks like a Pinterest ad. She has different rugs for each season and pillows and all the things. I wish I could be like her.
Christmas may not feel as cheery, it may not feel worth it, the season may bring up more feelings of pain and heartbreak than they can bear so they’re thinking it would just be easier to skip it all.
MOLLY INCLÁN
That year we were texting and I can’t even remember what the conversation was about. It was a really long time ago but probably about decorating for Christmas and I said something along the lines of I didn’t even know if I was going to put up a tree. I didn’t really see the point of decorating by myself when I was the only person who would even see it. Like what was even the point of a Christmas tree for one? We moved on and maybe a week or more passed. The comment I made was in passing and I thought nothing more of it. Later in the month, my best friend and I were making plans to hangout. She told me her husband was working late or out of town…I can’t remember exactly. Sometimes our favorite friend dates are running errands together. Getting Starbucks and going to Target. She suggested we do that and while we were there we could find a topper for my tree. She told me it would be fun to decorate…I mean that is her thing. She loves it and so I thought nothing of it. If she wanted to decorate she was more than welcome to. So we spent a weeknight decorating and putting up my tree. She went home and days later I told her I was really glad we ended up decorating after all. And then she told me the whole thing was a ruse to make me decorate for Christmas. I wish I could remember her comment word for word but it was definitely something about not needing a man for Christmas.
I talk a lot about the importance of who you surround yourself with because it’s truly what matters. It’s about who holds you up when you fall. Who calls you out when someone needs to and who will trick you into decorating for Christmas when you don’t want to. My friend is married. She easily could have spent that night at home with her husband instead of with me. Her husband could have been annoyed that he didn’t get a home cooked meal with his wife that night. But they didn’t and instead they made me feel loved instead of lonely. If you’re single or if you’re married I promise you know someone who is struggling through this Christmas season. It could be the first year without a loved one, the first year after divorce, the first year single, the first year after a miscarriage or any other set of events. Christmas may not feel as cheery, it may not feel worth it, the season may bring up more feelings of pain and heartbreak than they can bear so they’re thinking it would just be easier to skip it all. Show up for them. Decorate for them. Create joy for them. This life wasn’t meant to be lived alone.
Every year when I decorate my Christmas tree instead of thinking of the fact I’m doing it alone. I find joy in it and I reminisce over a Christmas where my best friend really showed up for me. Go be that for someone and remember you don’t need a man for Christmas.