I need a little Thanksgiving, right this very minute.
Actually, I need quite a lot of thanks-giving, right this very minute.
Christmas is already hot this year, maybe more so than any other year. And for good and understandable reason, because we could all do with a massive infusion of peace on earth and joy to the world right about now.
I know people are decking their halls and declaring “O Christmas tree” early, and I say, God bless them, everyone.
But I saw a post on this subject the other day that said 2020 has brought “nothing” but heartache and misery. Nothing. The lovely bigger point of the piece was that into this darkness, we need Christmas’ light of hope, and we need it straight away.
To borrow from the song from the musical “Mame,” we need it right this very minute.
I think we do, too. But for myself, I can’t quite get on board with the view that 2020 gave us “nothing” good.
That may very well be easy for me to say. I have, in fact, had it very easy. I know I have no idea how devastating and hard and painful and grief-producing this year has been for almost everyone. So many people have lost things—many of them not mere things at all—that can never be replaced. If bringing on Christmas, right this very minute, helps ease their hurting one iota, again I say, God bless them everyone.
But for all it took and for all it didn’t give, 2020 brought into clearer vision so many blessings that amount to so much more than nothing.
Homes to shelter in place in.
Family games and family puzzles and family movies and (so many) family dinners.
Technology that allowed work and learning and relationships to continue in some fashion.
Health care workers and first responders who showed us superheroes wear gowns and masks a lot more than they wear capes.
Teachers and grocery store workers and restaurant owners and truck drivers and artists and photographers and ministers who kept doing their jobs in abnormal ways so the rest of us could still know some semblance of “normal” life.
Fresh air and outdoor spaces.
Drive-in graduations and driveway concerts and drive-by hellos.
Backyard weddings and Zoom family reunions and virtual college tours and little libraries.
Recovery from coronavirus…or not getting it at all.
People to miss and to miss us.
I’m looking so forward to putting up my Christmas tree and putting on my Christmas music.
But first, for me, I want to put up my Thanksgiving tree and look back—with as close to 2020 vision as I can muster, even if I have to squint—at everything the year brought that I have to be grateful for. Right this very minute and then longer still.
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