Faith and Spirit: Finding meaning after the holiday season

By Andie Lyons

As I sit down to write this, the third night of Hanukkah has fallen, two candles on the Advent wreath are lit, there are only 13 shopping days left until Xmas and 11 days until Winter officially begins on the solstice, sometimes called Yule. In the United States and in many other Westernized (and usually Christianized) countries, this is usually referred to as the “Holiday Season.”

It’s not a coincidence that we’re knee-deep in festivities in the dead of winter. Under more usual circumstances (see: not yet affected by global warming) we’d have been battling waning daylight, bitter cold and inclement weather. In our agrarian days, the abundance of the harvest was over and the pickings were getting slim. The colder weather drives us indoors where we spread our cooties all over and end up with an awful cold or flu.

If you work in a windowless office or, like me, on the basement level of an old house, you can go a whole day hardly seeing sun, let alone soaking up your requisite vitamin D. That might just account for the depression so many experience as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

What I’m saying is this: When you live in the Northern Hemisphere, winter can be a bummer. Why not cheer ourselves with a fabulous party or two? Some nice warm drinks with a splash of rum? Some bright lights? Some excellent food – maybe a little higher in fat than our normal fare – but an extra layer comes in handy this time of year.

It’s not that the winter holidays – religious or secular – were dreamed up only as paltry distractions from the weather. But there is great mystery about the way the Earth turns its tides, more palpably in the chill silence of winter. We don’t seek meaning the same way when life is bursting in a riot of color, sound and smell. Then, we may wonder about the world, but don’t have to dig so deep for an answer.

When it is quiet and still, maybe sad and cold, the smallest beauty elicits the biggest celebration.

Winter miracles we commemorate in rituals come small and wonderful: days beginning to lengthen again, the lamp oil burning far longer than it should, waiting for a baby to be born, being each day closer to the next riotous spring. We celebrate them by making what our earth can’t give us right now: light abundant, the warmth of friendship, kindness, food, gifts.

Unfortunately, for every case of seasonal depression is a bout of anxiety under the stress of going home. For every joyful celebration is a day spent alone. There are as many alcoholic relapses as festive cups of eggnog. There are panic attacks about accrued debt or the inability to buy the perfect present, or the emptiness of buying things because we feel like we have to. There is grief from the loss of family from death or estrangement, from being single when the world tells us we should be anything but alone. The pressure to find joy in this ‘most wonderful time of the year’ compounds anxiety and sadness. The irony is how extensive our company might be if we realized how many around us have the same struggle.

Winter can still be a bummer. Nowadays maybe less because of the cold and snow (it’s been 60 degrees and we got only our second snow of the year in early December) and more because of unrealistic expectations. When a candle and the sun were our only sources of light, we made our own warmth – now we light up furnaces and gas fireplaces with the flick of a switch.

With everything we might ‘need’ at our fingertips, there is still mystery that needs explaining, still comfort that needs creating. It might be time to reexamine what warmth, light, and the coming of hope might look like in a world of fluorescent lights and seat-warmers.

After wishing store clerks a “Happy Holiday!” this past season because you didn’t want to guess what they celebrate this time of year, comfort yourself knowing that we were all seeking the same thing: something light, something warm, something meaningful in the midst of the barren cold. ]

Andie Lyons holds a Masters degree in theological studies from the Iliff School of Theology. Her interests include queer theologies and you cultures and religions.