A Christmas Letter
Family, grace, and a place to be held
I have an urge to write all the wishes I have for you this holiday season. A big part of me wants to make sure you all feel held today. She wants to wrap you in words that make you feel cozy, and safe, and warm. She wants to sit with you at the table where people you love might be missing this year. I love the people in this space so much and I know holidays can be complicated for many of us. I am so grateful for you. I hope you are held. You deserve to be.
Another part of me wants to dissect all of the things I am feeling while spending time in my childhood home where I still swim in old habits and thoughts, with the family I love deeply. Being home is always wonderful and also complicated and I know that swirl would resonate with others here and so I want to tell you that you’re not alone.
Another part of me wants to be as present as possible here with people I see less and watch age quicker. I already feel the tug of guilt sitting here with a computer on my lap for the five minutes it’s been here so far. A past therapist once told me “guilt is a useless emotion - if your guilt is rooted in something real for you, do something about it. If you can’t do anything about it (especially something that stills feels right and true for you) - you’ve gotta move on.”
So, a compromise.
In the amorphous week between Christmas and New Years, I will make space to write my letter to you.
Today, I will close my laptop and my guilt, pull on my ugly sweater, and slide back into the kitchen where my mom’s favorite Christmas CD is playing to help make deviled eggs. I will hold and be held here, I will ask questions and lean in, I will be see and be seen, I will love and be loved. I will take breaks when I need to. And maybe start my letter to you during one of them.
But first, I’ll share a letter I wrote to my niece on Christmas 2018.
December 25 2018
Dear Macey,
I love how visceral smell can be. Every time I blow out a candle, the second the air has escaped my lips and I see the flame sway, I close my eyes and breathe in — I pull hard, with desperate calm, afraid I’ll miss it, but I never do. The chatter of my siblings deciding whose turn it is to blow it out, my parents’ hands guarding the table from wax blown too enthusiastically, the stories we read by candlelight flickering behind my eyes– a selfless couple, a quiet boy, a shiny car, the colors of Christmas – and the red candle that held us all there, warm, for a moment every night.
I fill my room with candles just to blow them out. They’re different colors and scents now, but they all smell like home when the flame goes out.
This Christmas when we were all home for the holidays we read from that book of stories with you. It’s a tradition we have had since I was young at Christmas, given to us by our Mormon neighbors in Utah. There’s a story for every night of December and we light the red candle while we read together. You have been reading from it with Nana and Frank and your Dad this year and you had, of course, become the candle blower. It was your favorite part, just like it was your dad, my sister, and I’s favorite part when we were kids. We had deals and schedules for who would get to blow the candle out at the end of the story each night. It was coveted.
Last night you weren’t really listening to the story. You were antsy and chatting while Nana was reading. You were being four. You didn’t, perhaps couldn’t, listen the multiple times your dad asked you to sit quietly. So your dad leaned over and blew the candle out mid-story. I felt the shock on your face in the very center of my rib cage. Your tears rolled down my face and your feet up the stairs to your room pounded rage in my stomach.
Your dad came upstairs and apologized to you and we relit the candle. You came down, face wet, but resilient, and blew out the candle. You blew the smell of Christmas with family into the air. The small flame was replaced with a dancer of made of smoke. And behind her, your face broke into the joy that exudes from you so often. Your smile full of resilience and forgiveness. Your good soul overwhelms the bad from the moment and blows memories from all of the Christmas joys into the room.
I remember that night because of how much it broke my heart. And how much I want you to know that while the reaction of other people in the room or your own reaction retrospectively may be that you were overreacting or being dramatic, I don't think you were. When we’re kids, so many things are firsts. They’re surprising. I know how that must have felt to have been taken from you, even though it was a small thing. Every experience doesn't have to be about obedience. Obviously as you grow, you will learn the work of managing your reactions to your emotions, but also know that they are valid. There is space for them. They are not unreasonable.
But what I also remember, and what I hope you remember too, is every other night. When we would light that candle and sit in the living room, with no tv in sight, and open that book. Someone would read, often summarizing the stories we’ve heard a million times before, for brevity’s sake. Sometimes it was hard to sit still and so you chatted or rolled and bounced across laps or seats in the living room, dancing with the flame, and sometimes you would sit still, curled up against one of us, enraptured, calm, or tired, letting the light flicker on your face. Sometimes you were full of questions. Sometimes you just listened. But every night you jumped up to blow out the candle and filled the room with smoke that smelled like love.
December 25, 2023
Dear Stephanie,
I couldn’t walk away from this letter without an addendum. I look back on this letter now, 5 years later and what I want me to remember is to offer the same grace to my brother that I offered so easily to my little niece. While my empathy for kids is extremely high (especially amid my own inner child work), my empathy for adults can be more of a tightrope walk.
My brother was also young. He probably felt the pressure of having a “well-behaved” kid in front of a family, and especially a sister, that micromanaged and judged too often. He may have had a long day and was at the end of his patience. He may have been tired. He was just a human, figuring stuff out. He lost his temper. I lose mine all of the time. I lost it a lot more when I was 24. I just did the math to figure out that number and am blown away at what I expected of a 24 year old human.
I love, admire, and am so proud of my brother. I'm judging myself now for how hard I have been on him. Maybe shame is part of the reason I felt the need to write an addendum. But! I also deserve the grace of forgiveness and empathy. We’re all just trying. We always have been. How wonderful that we’ve grown. How lucky that we’ve grown towards each other through it, instead of away.
My family is complicated, but they are also the most beautiful gift. I deserve grace and so do they. So do you.
Merry Christmas from me and mine to you, if you celebrate.
