Christmas – Still Life, Beyond Cancer

The Heart of the Holidays: Celebrating With Intention

December 26, 2020December 28, 2020Sandee McGlaun

A recent viral Twitter thread by Canadian Mohammad Hussain recounts his observations as a Muslim who’s celebrating his first “proper Christmas” with roommates as a result of pandemic lockdown. Hussain’s observations–which you can read here–highlight the laborious, expensive, and time-consuming nature of many Christmas “traditions,” as well as how attached many of us are to those traditions, and how upset we get when our often elaborate plans are thwarted.

This year, of course, is the year of thwarted everything. I’ve seen and heard others express disappointment–and felt my own–at not being able to gather safely with family or friends, missing community events that were cancelled, feeling less connected to religious rituals that have moved online. And yet in this year’s necessary simplification of holiday gatherings and rituals I’ve also seen, and felt, something I can only describe as a kind of…relief.

Steve and I didn’t really “do” Thanksgiving this year. I love Thanksgiving–I enjoy planning a menu, cooking for the people I love, running (or more recently, walking) in our town’s annual Drumstick Dash with our two grown boys, breaking out the pumpkin margaritas. This year, on top of the pandemic making it unsafe for travel and gathering–and turning the Drumstick Dash into a virtual, on-your-own-schedule 5K– the holiday fell on a chemo treatment week. The timing meant that Thanksgiving Day was one of my “quiet” days, a day when I’m disinclined to do anything other than sit on the couch and sip soup. Cooking and eating a big feast, much less walking a 5K in any form, were not on the agenda. And while it was disappointing not to see family or tuck into cran-apple pie, it was also relaxing. We didn’t have a schedule. Instead of setting an alarm and heading out into the cold first thing, we slept in. Read books. Watched some Netflix. I wrote a few notes of thanks, which was arguably more meaningful than making cranberry gelatin, as much as I enjoy the tradition, and as tasty as it is. We let go of any expectations about the day, and instead of making menus and grocery lists and calculating times and temperatures for multiple dishes to make sure everything was ready at the same time, we ate when we were hungry, rested when we were tired, and just accepted that things were different this year. It felt good.

When I saw Hussain’s observations on celebrating Christmas, I thought back to our un-Thanksgiving. Christmas is different this year, too. I’ve been struck by how many people I’ve seen post or heard say something along the lines of “This is the first year we’ve been able to have Christmas at our home,” or “It’s been kind of nice to have time to just sit and watch the fire,” or “I was actually glad not to have to….” While I’m sad not to have our boys and grand-dog here making merry, this strange holiday is giving me the chance to think about why we do all the things we do to celebrate each year, and which aspects of that celebration feel essential, and which, perhaps, are just habits born of cultural or ritual expectation that no longer serve us.

Our white Christmas–a fun difference this year!

I think a lot of us get ourselves into trouble by trying to overdo and do it all: handmake ornaments for everyone we work with AND bake six kinds of cookies and package them in cute tins AND choose photos for and stuff and mail 100 holiday cards AND wrap presents like Martha Stewart AND take the kids to see Santa and the community tree lighting and the holiday parade AND attend all nine gatherings we’re invited to (we do genuinely like all the people, after all, except cranky Aunt Mildred, but she’d be hurt if we skipped her punch and cookies)—even sometimes juggling several events in a single day. Hussain compared celebrating Christmas to having a part-time job, and he wasn’t wrong. So many of us stack event on event and expectation on expectation to the point it takes a spreadsheet (or several) to manage our holiday.

Though our calendar has felt a bit too empty this year, I haven’t missed the franticness that often characterizes December. What does a holiday look like if we let go of the “we’ve always done it this way”s and the “it’s what everyone expects, and they’ll be disappointed if we don’t”s? (And who is this “everyone,” anyway?) If you choose not to worry about others’ expectations, what sifts to the surface as most pleasurable, most meaningful? In this year when so many things are different, what do you really miss? Did anything disappear from your to-do list that left you secretly relieved? And what, perhaps, did you bring back in to play because you had time this year, time that’s usually devoted to something else that maybe you don’t enjoy as much (or at all)? When the should’s and the have-to’s and the we’ve-always-done-it-like-that’s drop out, what stays, and can we find a way to hold on to those lessons going forward?

Frankly, the belief and insistence that “it’s our tradition, so we have to do x or y or z” is a significant reason why some people are risking their own lives and the lives of others to hold large family gatherings, or attend indoor religious services, even though at present those things are dangerous. Hussain jokes about people stabbing anyone “in the neck” who suggests an alternative to accepted traditions, but many people are in fact so beholden to what they usually do that they are willing to endanger their own and others’ lives to keep doing it, global pandemic be damned.

And I get that traditions often evolve from what’s important–seeing family, for example. But maybe 2020 can remind us there, too, what the crux of the matter really is. I still remember shuddering at hearing some of my born-Southern friends describe their holiday routine: Christmas Eve cocktails at Grandma A’s, then Christmas Eve church with Grandma and Grandpa B, then a lickety-split early Christmas morning at home so they had time to drive 2 hours to open packages and have Christmas dinner at their married older sister’s, then back in time to visit their dad’s family for caroling Christmas night. It sounded exhausting. And how do you manage any in-depth individual interactions with anyone when there’s always a crowd and the day’s such a flurry? It’s also true that traveling at the holidays can be exorbitantly expensive (higher priced airline tickets and gas prices) and extremely unpleasant.

Prepping for one of several family Zoom calls

As much as I love having family near at Christmas, I wonder: would it make as much or more sense to see family at some other, less harried time of year? Isn’t it the family togetherness that’s most important, not the time of year it happens? And if there’s something you really love doing with family at the holidays, do you have to confine that activity to the holidays? I love to bake and decorate cookies with my family, but we’ve been foiled this year, first by Covid, then by the post office. I hope we’re still going to manage a Zoom cookie-decorating session. But we could also make and decorate cookies in July or September or whenever it works for us to be in the same space again, and I bet we’d have just as much fun then.

This year my penchant for dressing up in festive clothes for the holiday took a fun pandemic-friendly turn: Steve and I got matching Christmas pajamas, and spent a good part of the day in them. We missed our boys but reveled in our kittens’ antics. We decided to privilege Zoom calls with loved ones and our own relaxation over kitchen prep and bumped our “Christmas dinner” to the day after Christmas. Whatever day we have it, it will taste just as good.

Christmas morning tea in our matching pjs–cheers!

Maybe this Covid Christmas can teach us all something about celebrating with intention. Despite the year’s oddities, we’re having a marvelous holiday. We wish you many marvelous days in the year to come.

In the Only-a-Little Bleak Mid-December

December 16, 2020January 9, 2021Sandee McGlaun

There seem to be no limits to the ways 2020 can be strange. Coronavirus surge and ongoing chemotherapy notwithstanding, this is the first year since 2015 that mid-December hasn’t been marked, personally, by some kind of trauma or bad news.

Recent Decembers have been hard. In 2016 I had a bilateral mastectomy on December 12th. In 2017 I had nipple reconstruction surgery at Thanksgiving, and in mid-December the left nipple failed, which brought on cellulitis on the eve of Christmas Eve. That was the first time something in the long series of treatments and surgeries I’d had went “wrong,” and it hit me hard. In 2018 we got word on December 14th of the first recurrence; I had a surgical biopsy December 31st. Last year, in 2019, I was diagnosed again right before Thanksgiving, and we spent early and mid-December uncertain of the extent of the spread, shuttling to multiple scans and appointments, waiting for news. Treatment started the day after Christmas.

2017 weekend in DC
2016
2019
2018
2017

The year’s not over yet, and I don’t want to tempt fate. But I’m glad we’ve at least made it to December 15th this year without a sudden disruption to our lives. Certainly there is disruption, but as wearying as treatment and the pandemic are, neither are new adjustments. And chemo is going in the right direction, which is something to be glad of!

A lot of people find the winter holidays difficult, for a variety of reasons. I’ve been lucky; aside from my paternal grandmother’s death in early December 1994, and the loss of my beloved Tiko kitty just prior to Christmas in 1997, Christmas has almost always been a joyful time for me and my family. I love choosing presents for people, making ornaments, baking cookies. I’ve led a privileged life, and the holidays have been rich with tradition and abundance. Back when I was declared cancer-free after my mastectomy, the hope was that Steve and I would have just that one Christmas in 2016 impacted directly by cancer, and then things would return to normal–or rather, go forward, having been changed by cancer, but done with it.

Decorations ready for this year’s kitten-friendly tree

Though my mind occasionally travels toward “what if…?” it’s simply too tender, too painful to contemplate with any depth what that life could have been like, had it been granted to us. I comfort myself with the reminder that there’s no guarantee an alternative path would have been better. That’s the thing about counterfactuals. We oftentimes imagine the thing that didn’t happen, the path we didn’t travel, in its ideal form. In my case, the house would be fully painted and decorated, I’d have finished and published a book (and it would be a bestseller!), Steve and I would be traveling regularly, and I’d be fit, thin, and have beautiful hair. Okay, it is likely I’d have hair. But–life happens. It’s never going to be perfect, chronic illness or no. Fairy tales are classified as fiction for a reason, and they stop at “happily ever after” because that’s precisely the moment things get complicated, and besides, happiness is a dynamic, messy, multi-faceted enterprise.

I’m happy I’m still around to note all these mid-December anniversaries, even as it can be hard to find the festive some days. I’m happy I’ve learned to pay attention to and appreciate all the good and beauty that is present, even when times are tough and the world’s gone weird. I’m glad for silly kittens, and old-fashioned paper snowflakes, and twinkly lights on our tree. I’m glad for today’s calm and routine, whatever tomorrow may bring.

Peace to you, friends, this December and always.

Days that Count: Reflections on Advent

December 4, 2020December 4, 2020Sandee McGlaun

It’s the first week of December, which means I’ve broken out the red dining room tablecloth, I’m scolding the kittens to stop chewing the Christmas tree fourteen times a day, and each morning I clap my hands with delight to see what sweet scene is behind the numbered door on this year’s advent calendar.

I grew up with an advent calendar and an Advent wreath. Lighting the candles in the wreath was a family religious ritual, accompanied by biblical readings each Sunday that reflected on hope, peace, joy, and love. We began the cycle each year with the first Sunday in Advent, as designated by the liturgical calendar.

Our advent calendar, however, always began each year on December 1st. It consisted of a piece of plywood covered in gold foil wrapping paper, with 24 lidded boxes of all shapes and sizes–each wrapped in a different festive paper–affixed to the board. I thought it was beautiful. Each year my mother filled the boxes with small treats for my brother Todd and me, then hung the calendar on the wall in the den like a big colorful painting. The lid of each box was numbered with gold stick-on numerals, and each year we switched who opened odds and who opened evens.

There were a few boxes whose contents was predictable. A tall, flat box, number 11 as I recall, always had a funny black poodle card in it, as not much else would fit the box. Number 24 always contained a small nativity that we would set up on the box’s fold-down lid in honor of Christmas Eve. Some of the boxes would reveal trinkets we already owned, pulled from a cabinet or the Christmas box. But a few of them always held new items: a tiny Snoopy notepad with even tinier colored pencils, an action figure, a tube of lip gloss. Most times we opened the day’s box before we headed out to catch the bus for school, and even on the days when it was my brother’s turn, the anticipation and the surprise made for a pleasurable start to the day.

The pleasure of that daily ritual has stuck with me, and I have sought to recreate it for others and myself numerous times over the years. When I lived in Germany as an exchange student, the Christmas I’d just turned 17, my host sister Kristin and I made an advent calendar for my German host mama: I drew a snowy village scene, and we wrapped up tiny ornaments, sweets, and perfume samples and tied them onto the bottom of picture with ribbon. My host mama made us each a calendar, too, and my mother back home in Georgia created and sent an advent calendar for my entire German family. My host parents, sister, brother, and I–and even the family dog Lola–took turns opening those packages, which my host mama had affixed to our cellar door. My mother and I have often traded assembling or making advent calendars for one another in the past; my best effort was a series of tiny woolen ornaments that told the story of a little girl searching for the meaning of the season, which Mom still puts out each year.

Steve, sensing my fondness for the ritual, has gifted me a lovely 3D paper calendar–birds last year, and kitties this year–for each of my last two birthdays. But until this year, it had been quite a while since I’d made an advent calendar for anyone. This year I was inspired to create calendars for my three favorite guys. Our grown sons can’t be with us this holiday due to the pandemic and my high-risk status, so I wanted to do something special for them. I can’t say much about their calendars without spoiling surprises to come, but I will say I think had as much fun brainstorming with Steve, searching out items, and putting their calendars together as the boys will opening them! It’s also had the added benefit that as they open a treat each day, we exchange messages. I thought hubby Steve needed a calendar, too, so I spent a few days designing and painting a “happy memories” calendar for him, based in a snowy mountain scene. I got to think about all those memories as I made the calendar, and now I enjoy watching him open his calendar’s entry each day as much as I enjoy finding the cute critters in the calendar he gifted me.

So what is it about advent calendars that captivates me so? And why, this year of all years, did I feel especially compelled to share their joys with others?

It’s been a hard year. I mean, 2020, right? Global pandemic and the accompanying illness and economic woes, forest fires, hurricanes, fractious political climate and elections. Personally, I’ve been in some form of cancer treatment (or on pause, not knowing for six weeks if they were going to find something that worked) since December 26th of last year. Fighting cancer and being immune-compromised in the era of Covid feels like mortal threat on top of mortal threat, and it’s wearying to have part of your brain and body perpetually in survival mode. And so many holiday rituals and traditions that usually bring me joy–walking the neighborhood Parlour Tour of homes with Steve, baking cookies with my mom or the boys, spending an evening shopping and putting outfits together for a local underprivileged child, attending an ugly sweater party with friends–are unavailable, unsafe.

But advent calendars are still possible. And while some of my good feeling about them derives from nostalgia, no doubt, hearkening back to those childhood mornings of little delights, I think there’s more to it than that. Advent calendars–in secular as well as religious form–offer me, us, something that we need in this upside-down, topsy-turvy year. Advent calendars are a lesson in appreciating this moment and its (often literally) small beauties, even as they are also a lesson in waiting. They encourage a daily practice of being present, finding a moment of pleasure, taking a moment to pause and appreciate the now. But they’re also about anticipation, faith that the days will roll forward, that even as darkness falls earlier and stays longer, the light will eventually return. For me they are also about fostering relationships and showing love. When I assemble or create a calendar for someone, I think of them throughout the process, and I hope some small part of me and my affection for the recipient is present each day when they open that day’s box or envelope or card.

And, of course, there is the wonder of surprise, even in miniature: What is behind this little door? What will I discover today? Wonder, love, being present, and faith in the future: all held in a small numbered box, or found behind a tiny paper flap. That’s the kind of gift we can all use right now, the kind of gift I’m thrilled to receive and, given the chance, even happier to give.

Last year’s bird calendar, which is getting a 2020 reprise!

Simple Gifts

December 24, 2016Sandee McGlaun

The Twelve Days of Christmas traditionally start on Christmas Day, December 25^th, and continue through January 6^th. The “twelves” that are on my mind these days are a bit different: having had surgery on December 12^th means that today, Christmas Eve, marks my 12^th day of recovery. Everyone has told me that the first two weeks are the hardest (and I hope they’re right), so I am glad to have reached this milestone, and look forward to continued healing over the next days and weeks.

I am more aware than ever of the many gifts in my life. Plentiful food; a warm, safe, spacious home. The love and care of so many people: devoted family who share their time and energy generously, decorating the tree, making meals, running errands, offering a voice of experience. Beloved friends who text encouraging messages, share their skills and favorite books, send beautiful holiday cards and bouquets that brighten up the darker days. And an incredible husband who stands by my side, makes me laugh, and doesn’t blink at changing bandages or fetching yet another Coca-Cola Icee (or even question my weird craving for them).

I’m also aware of gifts I’ve received for so many years without any comprehension they were gifts: the mobility to towel myself dry after a shower, mindlessly, unaware of the many twists and turns my body had to make to accomplish this simple task; the steadiness to reach the sugar where it lives on the highest kitchen shelf without having to ask for help; the stamina to sit at my computer and write for hours at a stretch. The gift of the absence of pain or discomfort. The gift of good health. Gifts I hope to receive again, and fully appreciate hereafter.

We won’t receive the full pathology report from the surgery until early January: we are hoping, based on the post-chemo scans, for good news. Until then, we will continue to celebrate the gift–a precious one– of another Christmas together. And I’ll keep you posted as often as I’m able about my ongoing Adventures in Cancerland.

Happy holidays, everyone!

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