I love South Carolina, but it's the season of the sticks.
The time of year when everything is better when it's dark.
Have you ever noticed how unappealing outdoor Christmas decor is during the day? The Santas and Rudolphs sit deflated on the front lawns. Strands of lights are wrapped like ugly green vines across porch railings and gutters. The skeletons of sophisticated reindeer stand naked, begging for sundown so they can be lit with purpose.
Our fir tree is the same. Sunlight filtering through the blinds causes me to wonder what type of people rearrange furniture to put seven-foot tall trees inside their living rooms. I hold this skeptical view until the tree’s lights are turned on. Then at night time, I appreciate the beauty of white lights wrapped neatly around handmade ornaments from the years when our daughters weren’t teenagers.
Seeing the Glass of Eggnog Half-Empty
I confessed to my wife the other day that my heart just isn’t in the spirit of the holiday this year. A discouraging job search and a puzzling health scare have quieted my soul into a bout of despair. The parties, the shopping for presents, the driving around to see lights, none of it has appeal right now.
But I also see the selfishness in this. It’s not fair to my family for me to stick myself in a corner while the revelers sing carols on TV. It’s not excusable to flail my arms in disgust over job rejections when the news shows videos of innocent lives being destroyed in lands I’ll never visit. It’s not right to mentally press fast forward to 2024 when there’s so much to celebrate in the waning weeks of 2023.
It’s a Wonderful Life, Right?
My favorite Christmas movie is more than likely my favorite any-season movie. I can never get enough of It’s A Wonderful Life. More so now in my forties. The reason is obvious: I relate more to George Bailey these days than I once did.
In my teens, I didn’t understand him. How could he be so miserable when there were so many good things around him? A beautiful wife. Sweet kids. A house, albeit a bit drafty, and that darn knob on the staircase being broken.
Here at 42 (when did I get so old?) I cringe at George Bailey. Because I am him. I am the one drifting into the negative space in my head while my daughters hum Christmas songs. I’m the one playing the Debbie Downer role when my wife tries to be encouraging. I’m the one going through the motions when everyone around seems to be soaking in the scenery.
I’m Split In Half, But That’ll Have To Do
As I’m teaching my daughters their writing class for this homeschool year, I’m trying my best to make it intriguing. This week we talked about parallelism. They made charts using a classic O. Henry story. I played Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” and we discussed lyrics that displayed parallelism.
The song is a melancholy reflection on the singer’s breakup with a girlfriend. But “stick season”, a term referencing the post-autumnal beauty in Kahan’s home state of Vermont, feels most relatable. That season is here now, in the upper parts of South Carolina. The trees are void of leaves. Nothing but ragged sticks thrusting every which way, nothing to show for themselves.
The landscape around isn’t beautiful. It just isn’t. The Bermuda lawn is dormant and is just a blanket of brown-gray ground. Any leaves that are on the ground are withered and flake apart at the touch. And the trees. Hopeless, lifeless structures that would do just as well to invite a lumberjack over and put them out of their misery.
“Every Time A Bell Rings, An Angel Gets Its Wings”
It’s odd, isn’t it? Not until the sky darkens is this season truly beautiful. Not until the sun, which preposterously drops from view now at 5:30 in the afternoon, is gone is the light brightest.
The ending of It’s a Wonderful Life is perfect. Its best moment is simply George Bailey coming in from a period of seeing what life would be without him when he sees his family, his home, for what it is: an incredible blessing.
So if you see me, know I’m trying. I’m trying to see outside of myself. I’m trying to not be fearful of the future and skeptical of the present. I’m trying to see my life for what it is: an unexplainable blessing from God, one I surely do not deserve.