Thanksgiving Day is the unofficial beginning of the Holiday Season. A time for joy, for getting together with relatives and friends, and a time to gobble up everything in sight with reckless abandon and nary a pang of guilt.
When I was a child, I used to wait with unfettered anticipation for the holiday season, as the time of year always included yummy treats, trips to my grandparent's house, and special traditions.
Life was so simple then.
So what has changed? Why does the holiday season appear less joyous to me as well as to so many others?
Youth is a loan that must gradually be repaid each year as we advance into our journey to old age. Youth allows us to take our experiences for granted. As a 5 years old, I imagined my life as never changing; in fact, I could not fathom a future 20, 30, 40 or more years into time! I could peer far into the future and see everything as exactly the same as it always was.
Unfortunately, adulthood is a thief that swipes away childhood idealism and innocence. While we are unaware, the angst of adolescence grabs hold, followed by more changes as we move through young adulthood, middle age and old age. We have no time to say goodbye to our childhood innocence or the footloose and fancy-free experience of our young adulthood.
As we step further ahead into time, people begin to leave our lives. When I look at pictures of family gatherings long past, I see people who have passed on years before -- frozen in time. Sometimes it feels strange for me to tell my husband about people he never met who were such an integral part of my life. We often talk about remembering voices of those taken from us and sometimes we replay those voices in our heads so we won't forget.
Time adds people as well. When a younger generation comes along, I eye them with a bit of jealousy. My father always used to say that youth is wasted on the young. I remember feeling angry in my younger years every time I heard him say it, but no truer words were spoken.
The young are blissfully ignorant.
Years ago, my brother and I were helping my parents clean out my grandmother's house shortly after her death. The experience was surreal. Every time I looked up, I expected her to come walking into the room. Everything I saw brought back a pleasant memory. My mind flashed back to holidays spent at her dining room table and if I listened closely enough, I could almost hear the laughter. In my mind's eye, she and my grandfather were together again, here with me, instead of in some other place where they would always appear forever out of my reach.
I snapped out of one of my mental journeys and found myself staring at the faces of my two young nephews. I could tell that they were wondering why I had drifted so far off and why they had to literally wake me out of a dream.
They looked so young. So innocent.
I found myself opening my mouth to explain why we should not take time for granted and why we should realize every day of our lives that time changes everything...that nothing ever remains the same. I wanted to tell them that they should treasure every moment. I wanted to tell them how I felt as a 5 year old as compared to now. I wanted to share my knowledge with them so they would not take people and events for granted as I had once done.
I ended up closing my mouth and saying nothing. There was nothing I could say that would make them understand.
Maybe the holiday season is "less joyous" because of the bittersweet memories of the past. If we go back far enough to ask our great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents about how they felt about the holidays in adulthood, I am sure they would say the same thing.
Treasure every moment.
