The Meaning of Christmas...

GAH, MY FACEBOOK NEWS FEED HAS TURNED INTO SOME RELIGIOUS WEBPAGE WITH SHOUTOUTS TO JESUS, AND CALLS TO REMEMBER THAT HE'S THE REASON FOR THE SEASON. *runs for cover*

Just so you know, this is not another religion-bashing post. This is, after all, their holiday. But as someone who didn't realize that Christ had anything to do with Christmas til late childhood, I'm endeavoring to understand what exactly Christmas is supposed to mean to me. I love that the Wikipedia page for Christmas recognizes the secular aspects of the holiday early on; I feel...validated in my understanding of Christmas as an American cultural holiday, as opposed to as a Christian religious one.


I've talked about Christmas a lot already, because this Christmas is...different for my family this year. To make a long story short, times are tough for everyone involved--myself definitely included--and thus things are being kept...simple. And I've been kind of down in the dumps about it. But on the phone tonight, my friend M a) inadvertently reminded me how good a friend she is and how much I miss her, and b) told me that it takes a Christmas like this to appreciate all the other Christmases. And she's right. It's a Christmas like this, apart from the small children and the cookies for Santa and the tree and the anticipation that makes me sit back and think about what Christmas really means.


Christmas means taking at least a few days off from the rest of life. Christmas means being with my family, even if not everyone is thrilled about this. Christmas means doing everything within your means to get your loved ones in the Christmas spirit, meaning the spirit of love and peace and joy and giving. Christmas means love, the kind of love that, while it may lie peacefully dormant for most of the year, shows itself flamboyantly in bouts of colorful joy every once in a while, and gives of itself even knowing it can expect nothing in return. Christmas means creating your own traditions to supplement the ones your childhood gave birth to. Christmas is being in the arms of someone who loves you, and resting your head on your mom's shoulder, mixed in with a hint of how it feels to be picked up for the first time in years. Christmas is the familiarity of your Grandmother's kitchen combined with the thrill of a young Denzel and a pre-crack Whitney in The Preacher's Wife and the slightest of desires to jingle when you walk. Christmas is always wanting to believe Santa is real, no matter how old you get; it's hating snow but wishing for it anyway. Christmas is warm and somewhat fuzzy and somehow magical. Christmas is love.

 

Flutterbyes

So I realized something random and kind of remarkable today while I was walking to the bus stop. I'm fairly sure that besides the one day I didn't leave my apartment, I have seen at least one butterfly every single day that I have been in Chicago. That has to be some kind of a good omen for my life, right?

I mean, butterflies are pretty remarkable creatures in and of themselves.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.  ~Richard Buckminster Fuller

Think about it...in a span of about a month, these creatures go through a physical (and I suppose mental) transformation that is so powerful that, when everything is said and done, they are unrecognizable as their former selves. Almost every culture throughout history has attributed powers of change to the butterfly, and many believed they represented the soul and all that is good and light. 
And I can totally understand that, because every time I see a butterfly fluttering over trash and broken glass on the sidewalk or dodging cars on the busy highway, there is a small moment of joy in the midst of my hectic day as I stop to say "Hello butterfly."

I think what I'm supposed to take out of this is that no matter where I am, even if it's the dead of winter, I should find something to be my day's butterfly.