and gently whispers 'hope'...

I honestly think, and fear, that I could let Christmas completely pass me by this year if I'm not too careful. I have by now opened the third window of my advent calender ('Fame' is its theme this year, Dad's choice as mum currently has a broken foot so was unable to have an input) and am fast hurtling towards the fourth. But I haven't yet written a Christmas card (although I have bought them) or put up any decorations, and have only bought one person's entire present so far! (Lucky Sarah K!) I have already been to my first carol service of the year, which was wonderful, but still with that weird and frustrating sense of distant 'make believe', as if we're just going through the motions of Christmas and acting it out, but it's not actually real. I'm enjoying the feeling of my ears carefully unwrapping and dusting down the Christmas repertoire of songs unheard since last year, and it feels strange but gratifying to have memories from my sister's wedding last year, which was the last time I heard many of them. Dancing to 'Fairytale of New York' with my cousins and other friends at the tail end of the evening do, and swaying with that sense of relief and don't-care-that-my make-up-is-now-smeared-across-my-face-or-that-I've-spilt-a-drink-down-my-very-expensive-dress euphoria. Those memories all unexpectedly rushed back to me when I heard the gravelling tones of that classic a week or so ago, like tinsel unexpectedly springing out of a dusty box hauled out of the attic.

Last night I was debating whether or not to 'bother' putting up my tree this year- please hear me out before you threaten me with the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future, or humbugs, or miserly tendencies, or small ill children with walking sticks- but my tree is currently chez les parents, and I am going away this weekend so the next chance I have to retrieve it would be next weekend. Essentially I would therefore have one mere week to enjoy its splendour, in solitude (not because I am a total loser- but just as all of my festive events involve me socialising outside of my flat) before heading back to Bangor to enjoy total festive warmth and joy at that juncture. Persuaded? Yes OK so part of me still thinks it would be some kind of defeat not to do it, like I'd given up on the brief window of opportunity to enjoy it, yes it perhaps serves no practical purpose, but not to do it would be like some kind of surrender to being a person who doesn't go out on a limb and do something 'just because' or seize the moment and join in. And I don't want to be that person. Driving home last night I passed a veritable grotto that garishly lit up the night sky along a country road and found myself chuckling to myself with delight, just with the pleasure of knowing that someone had gone to such effort just to mark the occasion and get into the spirit, and it cheered me that someone had had the cheer and energy to go overboard like that just to be part of this season we all share.

But no matter what motions of Christmas festivities I will inevitably end up going through in the coming weeks, it's whether I really end up getting into the spirit- the fizz and warmth and glow and spice and glitter (not Gary- pity though I did like that song back in the innocent day)- of it all. The type that sizzles in the pit of your stomach and makes you have a dance-around-by-yourself-for-no-reason type moment. I usually have at least one peak moment of this sort during the festive era. I distinctly remember it from last year, it was the first Saturday in December, I went to St George's market with some friends, there was snow on the ground which we slipped and slithered along to get there, and a band playing, we bumped into more friends and I bought myself a lovely necklace with buttons on it just because I wanted it, my cheeks were rosy and I started to feel giddy for no reason. I came home and put on my cheesiest Christmas CD and did a seriously energy-burning dance around my flat for at least 15 minutes on my own. I can't imagine even being anywhere near that point at the moment. I feel my head is still stuck in the mundane and the nitty-gritty of life and I'm not really looking around me and savouring it all. It's kind of like that quotaion about life being what happens when you are busy making plans, I'm kind of feeling that way about this whole festive season. Today I had my usual 12.5 hour working Thursday to trudge through and as usual I went into autopilot, totally focussed on work and calmly getting everything done. I forced myself to go out to a local shopping centre before my evening class and I marched, robot-like, past the glimmering lights and decorations and pottered around a few shops, until the grey haze of the office has all but lifted from my mind. I decided to pop into Starbucks for an energy-boosting treat to see me through rigours of the the 3hr class that lay ahead. I was standing in the queue and then I started to soak it up, a different feeling in the air. Two people huddled together over a laptop, making plans, their faces glowing in the light of the machine, and each other's company. People with rustling shopping bags, a louder and livelier background chatter than before, laughter and anticipation, and something kind of stirred in me from that mechanical, work-dulled state of mind, and because I wasn't yet free for the day I momentarily felt like an outsider looking in on all this crackling warmth and buzz. A feeling began to grow somewhere in my soul- not quite longing, not even sadness, or even weariness- it hadn't quite taken shape when I glanced up and saw a beautiful red bird that said 'Hope' on its side, and I felt my soul latching on to that word and lifting up from wherever it had been heading to. (No I wasn't hallucinating, it was just a decoration from those corporate giants and no doubt mass-produced in their 100's of stores but it was pretty nonetheless...) Yes, hope. Hope for a zombified, work-worn girl staring bewildered at the fading embers of her twenties, and hope for everyone else around me trudging through life with their own fears and confusions. Hope that life can still be warm and surprising and shimmering and cinnamon-scented and just plain unwrapped and new. And you'll be pleased to know this gal who is addicted to the-moral-of-the-tale is going to sit on her hands and not conclude that way- it's just enough to know that sometimes it's possible to glance up on a dull day and catch an unexpectedly soul-refreshing glimmer of hope on the side of a pretty red paper bird.