What I wish for you this Christmas
It doesn't come with a gift receipt.
For years, Jenny and I have taken a Yin class in a hot, humid room every Sunday morning.
Yin is a slow and intense form of yoga that involves holding each deep stretch unmoving for three minutes or longer. Our teacher, Casey, is a sage woman who has shown us our bodies (and our lives) are complex, networked systems that we can observe with awe.
It’s a moment of concentrated bliss that some students call “Church.”
One Sunday, as we sat in awkward pretzel shapes named after animals, Casey told us about how the sympathetic nervous system responds when our bodies are injured.
This is our fight-or-flight mechanism that reacts immediately by streaming in white blood cells and cranking up inflammation. It’s essential to our survival, but, like sending in a half dozen fire engines to a false smoke alarm, it can be a gross over-the-top response with a heavy price to pay.
We also have a parasympathetic nervous system that takes care of our health and healing over the long term. Deep sleep, relaxation, and lowering our blood pressure and breathing all help us to recover and grow stronger over time.
It’s a deep system that works a long garden.
Instead of responding with big guns, adrenalized shrieking, and flashing lights, the parasympathetic helps strengthen our immunity and our ability to recover over the years.
Which made me think of Christmas.
The holidays are filled with beautiful ideas.
Christmas brings us Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All. Joy. Possibility. Togetherness. Feasting. Caroling.
And then we have New Year’s Eve with the chance of a fresh start, an improved life filled with healthy resolutions.
But here’s the thing.
Christmas can also feel like a sympathetic system response.
Gifts flow in and pile up like blood cells. Energy is ramped up exponentially. We experience exhilaration but also anxiety, obligation, disappointment, tension, conflict, and, finally, exhaustion.
All of the demands and expenses of the season build and build until we collapse, spent and hungover in front of the TV on New Year’s Day.
We try to jam in so much in such a short time.
Twelve days never seem enough to cram in all the shopping, enjoy all the food and drink, visit every friend and relative, and recall every memory of Christmases past. Our to-do lists unspool, as long as gift ribbons. The commercialization of the season makes us feel pressured and anxious — I saw my first signs of Christmas in Costco in July.
My sister sent me a text yesterday with a photo of her staggering pile of wrapped presents and a message: “I am so done with Christmas.”
Our friend Amy has three trees, each immaculately decorated to Martha Stewartian standards.
My neighborhood is festooned with over-the-top lighting displays installed by professional crews with cherrypickers.
The holidays are a joyous time for celebration, but they can be a tough time for many of us. Expectations are so high we fear they will never be met.
Gift-giving can feel like an opportunity to fail, give the wrong thing, or never enough.
Family get-togethers can emphasize the differences between us rather than bringing us together.
And the holidays can also underscore our loneliness, our estrangement, how far we are from loved ones, how many are now dearly departed.
Could we create a more parasympathetic response?
Could we think about peace and joy and togetherness all year round, in small servings, rather than the groaning board of late December? Could we appreciate all we have to be grateful for — every day?
What if we just open our sketchbooks and draw what we already have that is beautiful?
The shadows of our teacup on the kitchen counter.
The view of the neighbor’s roof out the living room window.
Our cat stretched out by the heater vent.
Our faces in the mirror are older, wiser, and more beautiful every day.
And as we draw, our pulses slow, and our blood pressure drops. Our cells work to knit together the damage of life and ease the changes of aging cells. We grow calmer and more appreciative.
We delight in our cup of steaming tea, the bird song in the garden, and the gentle stirring of the leaves.
Have you watched the TV production of All Creatures Great and Small, the story of life in a small Yorkshire village in the 1930s?
The first season concluded with a Christmas party in the village pub, cheerily decorated with sprigs of holly and pine. The neighbors raise glasses and sing carols together while the snow swirls outside. Dogs slumber by the fire. Contentment reigns. A gentle peace blankets them as they honor the endless cycle of the year.
A life well-lived.
I wish you a parasympathetic Christmas and a healing New Year.
Your pal,
Danny