Dakota Beacon

Somewhere it has been said that a person will identify with the Four Stages of Christmas between childhood and adulthood:

I believed in Santa Claus.

I believed my parents were Santa Claus.

I realized there was no Santa Claus.

Now I am Santa Claus.

As a child, the days before Christmas were always charged with anticipation. Excitement built with each passing day, and I wanted to preserve the endless feeling of anticipation leading to Christmas Eve. Christmas Day inevitably dawned with a flurry of activity.

It finally occurred to me sometime around age fifteen that the magic of the season was wrapped up in anticipation and expectancy. It was then that I realized that the absence of expectation produced The Big Letdown. Mind you, this was my disposition before becoming a Christian.

I wanted Christmas to go on forever, to never end. Christmas seemed to come and go so quickly. Almost as an afterthought, New Year’s Eve slid in behind Christmas. Up with the new calendar, down with the old. New Year’s Day became anticlimactic with only bittersweet memories added to other recollections in my collection.

As a kid in our home, New Year’s Day marked the culmination of the Christmas season. This I found to be a rather solemn occasion, even more so as I finished high school and headed off for college. After the New Year’s festivities, and after coming down from the holiday high, life returned to the humdrum of the daily grind.

As life moved on, New Year’s Day marked the march of time like no other holiday. As youngsters we were not so much aware of it. A cartoon once depicted kids in conversation saying something like, “It’s January 1st and I don’t feel any different.” A few years later we kids were singing a different tune.

Sometime in mid-life it dawned on me that there were more Christmases behind me than there were ahead of me. Although it sounds a bit schmaltzy, a little sadness crept into the holiday afterglow. It is true. To offer a trite observation, we won’t come this way again.

Boxing up the Christmas Tree decorations, I noted ornaments given by one sister through the years. Packing the decorations one at a time symbolized different years in the progress of Christmases past. The same was true for handmade ornamented Christmas stockings given by another sister decades ago. Candle sticks, a crèche, a music box -- each marked a different Christmas season, and each held its own special memory.

Memories cascade through my mind tweaking a recollection here, jogging a reminiscence there. My rational nature gives way and emotions kick in. Helpful emotions. They serve me by softening my attitude and dispelling grudges. Time seems more precious as good health holds the line. Family and friends grow more intimate and children become more cherished. Fleeting things that seemed so important yesterday pale in comparison to this revived insight.

“Cleaning up” after New Year’s seem like an inappropriate phrase. It implies the season was a mess which, of course, it was not. Hectic, yes. A mess, no. Stowing the Christmas remnants resembles a minor act of desecration in that it disturbed the sanctity of the Christmas celebration.

2026 will culminate once again with Christmas adornments. It seems an eternity away but, in keeping with cycles, we will reassemble the decorations in less than a year and Christmas anticipation will build once more.

For better or for worse, so much will happen between now and then. Some events will be permanent, some not so much, and the things made permanent will reign conclusively: births and deaths, health and illness, good and evil.

At the risk of casting shadows, for each of us our holidays are numbered. Before the age of fifty the thought never entered my mind. After fifty, that thought takes on a life of its own flitting into consciousness when least expected.

All that said, New Year’s Day presents something of an oxymoron. Of all the holidays that bookmark the passage of time, New Year’s Day becomes an enthusiastic, heartfelt, and subtlety emotional time. New Year’s may not be noted for the anticipation it builds, but rather for the opportunity to shed the trials and tribulations of the past year. As poet Alexander Pope observed,

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is, but always to be blest.”

The promise stands out that we can choose to start anew. Today remains the first day of the rest of your life.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)