The heart of the season

No family is altogether "typical," but Christmas was a Hallmark occasion in my childhood. I grew up in a big family with parents who loved each other and stayed married. There were lots of presents on Christmas morning, even the poor years when many were homemade. When I grew up and moved out, I was still only one town away, and drove back for Christmas morning, stretching out the happy childhood into early adulthood. When I married, a few days before my 25th birthday, my wife had an eight-year-old son from her first married, so we were an instant family. Our daughter arrived the following year. Hallmark Christmases continued. I knew there were families that didn't experience the joy of Christmas because of different cultural backgrounds, and people who were alone on Christmas for lack of relatives or lack of proximity to the family they had. But I hadn't experienced it myself. Then one year something happened to show me the power of Christmas to convey sadness as well as happiness even to people who celebrate it traditionally. Plato was a cocker spaniel. Her original owners, a husband and wife, were schoolteachers. Since they both worked, and worked the same hours, and had no children, there was no one play with Plato. She -- yes, she was a she -- grew sullen. The teachers thought giving Plato to a large family might make her happy again. Probably it was too late. Plato had grown to realize that "Hello" meant company, and would wag her whole bottom even when strangers said it. But "Goodbye" meant being alone for at least nine hours, and when she heard it she would bite even the people she loved most. She liked sitting quietly with us and being stroked, but if you threw a ball she would simply get it and sit with it, and if you tried to retrieve it she would bite you. We loved her anyway, and never more than on Christmas, when she gravely watched what we were doing, and then joined in, tearing up the wrapping paper we gave her. When she died, it was at another season, and I don't recall anyone mentioning her behavior at Christmas as we mourned her, but the next Christmas was a very different one. I remember thinking things were quieter than usual, and then someone mentioned that it wasn't the same without Plato helping open presents. It is reasonable not to want such a bittersweet sentiment to intrude when you're having an ordinary, cheery Christmas. I mention it only because there are many reasons for Christmas to be a time of more complex emotions than merely a child's joy -- there is the loneliness of feeling apart from a very common celebration, the loneliness of being apart from one's loved ones, and the loneliness that memories bring. This is precisely why such happiness as you are able to find is so vital, and so precious, and so welcome, and so worth celebrating. This is why, even if you cannot have that last full measure of Christmas delight yourself, you can work for others' happiness. There is, ultimately, some very substantial joy in that. Merry Christmas.