It’s appalling, isn’t it? The stores full of Christmas decorations and Christmas songs, the ads on TV of beautiful people whisking through virgin snow towards their new cars. I have a more personal gripe with Yuletide this year — when I haven’t fully unpacked and stowed all my regular trappings, the notion of putting up a whole different set of objects, even beloved objects, seems… indecent. And exhausting.
I’ve been waiting to unbox my art and decorative objects until the space seemed more defined — when I understand more of what I’m looking to do with it and what it wants to be itself. (…Although I can be wrong. Starting with painting it a dark rose, I’d planned the guest bedroom to be something out of Arthur Rackham, moving all the Andrew Lang fairy tale books and the Pantheon Folk and Fairy Tale Library up onto the existing bookshelf in anticipation. The “Festive Llama” duvet cover and the white porcelain llama lamp — complete with jaunty multi-color pom-poms dangling from the shade — seem to be taking the room in a different direction.)
So, bottom line — I’m excited about decorating and making, and not excited about Christmas. Advent is peering over the edge of the horizon, and I haven’t quite decided how I feel about that, either. (Still haven’t gone to church yet; although I’m missing the Eucharist, I’m not ready to start telling my tale to a new community.) Browsing for an Advent calendar on Etsy, I found myself rejecting out of hand anything Nativity or Santa-centric… scanning for woodland pals and comfy European villages with plump people skating, until BLAM, I scored a vintage Tasha Tudor calendar (crushing the hopes and dreams of two other folks who had it in their e-shopping carts before I swooped in with brutal precision)… and got a little more insight into what this season is likely to look like for me.
I know a lot of people struggle during this time of year, mourning the lessening of light and feeling bogged down, both listless and overstimulated. I’m lucky. I love the overcast, the sound of fleeing geese in the air above, the browns and yellows and grays in the fields and marshes that show us that it’s okay to rest and lie fallow for a while. Santa can’t bring me anything better than the first night I’ll wake to hear raindrops on the skylight above me. I don’t want to encourage anyone to join the Industrial Hygge Complex, but I have just picked up my copy of Making Winter by Emma Mitchell (follow her on twitter @silverpebble if you need inspiration this season — hell, any season!) and am browsing through the things I can make and eat and do and observe to fully experience the joys of the chilly dark. Maybe it’s a good moment for you to look at what delights winter can offer, when you push Christmas out of the picture for a bit.