This Coronavirus Year 2020 has taught me a few things I never wanted to know. The latest one is what it’s like to be a person who doesn’t look forward to Christmas. This is a very eye-opening experience because into my 50s Christmas has been as much my favorite thing as it was when I was five years old. Suddenly it’s not.

But I don’t feel bad about that. November was a rough month because I was still having anxiety and depression symptoms which caused fear of being alone and terrified of being alone on Thanksgiving and Christmas. But those problems have resolved (for now) and these days I’m extremely grateful to feel calm and stable – no anxiety symptoms or depression. It’s the first time since last June I’ve felt good most days of the week. I think I’ve finally emerged from the horror that started in July!

Without the heightened emotions caused by mood disorders, how do I feel about Christmas? I feel very little. I’m learning that what I love about Christmas is celebrating with others,  but my tradition is hosting a party with friends and people I’ve never even met before, and that’s not going to happen this year.

People in other parts of the U.S. have told me I should go ahead and have my Dec. 25th party, but they don’t understand that my friends won’t come over. Here in deep blue (Democratic) Chicago which is white-hot with this virus, many people are being as compliant as possible wearing masks, social distancing and suspending holiday traditions. I am unable to have the party I want.

It turns out that Christmas for me is community and friendship and celebration with others and without those things it’s not Christmas. This feels like any other month and the sparkling lights others have put up look nice, but they don’t evoke the thrill I usually get.

It’s not bad. I don’t feel lonely or sad or disappointed. I wasn’t looking forward to a trip to see family or a reunion with a lover or a ski weekend with friends. It just feels like Christmas will be yet another day in a string of days we have to get through to reach the end of the pandemic.

I look at my friends who decorated their living rooms before November was over with bemusement. Good for them. It’s good that people are putting up the lights and playing the music. But this year I’m occupying the role of Person Who Doesn’t Love Christmas. I’m not against it. I haven’t turned into Person Who Dislikes Christmas. I just don’t see anything to look forward to on that day.

Years ago on a Christmas episode of the TV series ER, someone wearing a Santa hat asks Abby what she wants for Christmas. She says, “I want it to be January.” I was floored by that sentiment. I still don’t know exactly why that character disliked Christmas, but now I feel similarly. I don’t like being Person Who Doesn’t Love Christmas, and I’d like to get through December as quickly as possible. It’s partly that I’ve become a person who dislikes long nights and wants more sunlight to come back and it’s partly that I want time to move quickly so the pandemic will be over.

I want to command Time itself, “Go on, December, get out of here. You’re up, January. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Come on, February, move it!” I’m not one of those people who feels like time goes quickly and says things like, “How did it get to be [name of month] already?” I tend to experience time as children do, especially waiting for Christmas to come back around again (I long for Christmas every year and it always feels like to took a long time to get here). But now I want to switch on the time speed machine and fast forward to when, as my friend Paloma put it, all of this is a documentary.

I’ve wondered how someone whose family celebrates Christmas could possibly not love it. People who feel “blah” about the holiday have baffled me, but now I kind of get it. If I had children I had to spend money on or people I had to create the holiday for and I didn’t have a Christmas tradition I love, I guess I wouldn’t like it much either. I’ve probably adored Christmas my whole life largely because I’ve never been in the position of putting in a bunch of work and/or money so others could enjoy Christmas. I’ve made Christmas exactly what I want.

The virus has blocked my Christmas traditions, but at least I’m not stuck working hard to make a decent holiday for children or other family. I’m grateful for that. But I feel for those who will have to work many times harder this year to try to make a good holiday for their children, whether because they have much less income or because everyone has been demoralized by the year we just had. This Christmas is just going to be a non-Christmas for a lot of us.

7 Dec 2020

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