happy holidays

another christmas come and gone--my 25th on this dear earth. it's my favorite season, and always somehow one of significance for me in whatever respect. and i always experience some sort of "fall out," or just a distinct change from the season immediately following christmas day. it's like christmas evening rolls around, everyone is exhausted, presents have been opened and food consumed. and the traditions are past and it's always kind of like, well what now? i suppose epiphany is in a couple weeks.

hopefully presents and presence have brought you some joy, however long those things are a comfort. hopefully there has been some sort of representation of the symbolic spiritual arrival of this day. but still it seems like things don't really feel like they are all that different. i am glad to have spent time with family, i am grateful for the presents received, i enjoyed the music, the food, the festivities, but nothing is really different in me. has Christ come in new arrival in my life today? but did i make my journey to bethlehem?

maybe it has to do with all "holidays." maybe my sense of celebration isn't super great. i think sometimes though i just get frustrated celebrating symbolism. i want to celebrate reality. i want to know the new coming of Christ--in other people's lives as much if not more than my own. is the arrival of Christ about a tradition of the past or a new reality of the future for many and all? do we need to say with sufjan "get behind me santa!"? is "christmas" for all it is getting in the way of all that christmas could be?

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these thoughts seem almost a little ridiculous to me actually though--like, come on, just enjoy the day and not take everything so seriously. and that's when this weight usually puts me to sleep. not from boredom, but burden, bearing alone and into the deep, further away, as uninviting as it is open.