Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
I ran across a post by Merlin Mann today that really struck a chord with me regarding the song “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”
I, like Merlin, find it odd that so many people regard the song as a merry little way to say “Merry Christmas” to you and yours. This song is as melancholy as one can be during this season, and it’s that essence that has been part of my mindset about the Christmas holiday for decades.
The first time I realized the underlying sadness of the song was when I was six years old. It was Christmas Eve and I had gone to bed in preparation for my visit from Santa Claus. Just like most nights, I had my clock radio on sleep mode listening to KKNG (which was an easy listening station back then, a harbinger of my latter-day musical taste) and of course there was Christmas music playing.
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” came on (I’m sure it was the Judy Garland version) and I began to listen to the lyrics. As I was doing so, I looked out my window into the cold, clear, rural Oklahoma night and thought about the vastness of life and that the end of every year truly was bittersweet and something that you can never get back. It made me wistful as only a six year-old boy could be and from that point on there has always been an undercurrent of sadness that I feel when Christmas comes around.
Yeah, that’s what it’s like to be me. Six years old and full of introspection. Shit.
I heard the song (this time definitely the Judy Garland version) on Pandora last week while I was working after Nathan and Robin had gone to bed and the wistful juice started a-flowin’ once again.
This year is my first Christmas to share with my son Nathan, and even though that has lifted my spirits somewhat regarding the season it’s also deepened the introspection and made this time of year even more bittersweet. This Christmas marks the end of Nathan’s first year on this Earth and while it’s been great, it’s time that I’ll never get back and I know that the next year won’t hold the same kind of milestones and memories that this one has.
Bittersweet.
But, that’s OK. When January 1st rolls around (after surviving my kindred neurosis about New Years’ Eve) I find myself in a forward-looking frame of mind and in the best of spirits again.
In the end, Merlin really said it best in his post:
I don’t have a grudge against people who think the holidays are a shiny happy time when everything’s always perfect and people who feel otherwise must strain to glow with the fake internal warmth of a Thomas Kinkade house. Really. I don’t. (Mostly.) But, I definitely feel more at home with the folks who acknowledge that Christmas is complicated, emotionally edgy, and utterly unbearable if you insist on pretending it’s otherwise.
Me too. Here’s to hoping that you enjoy this season in whatever suits your particular holiday disposition.