Essays from West of 98: December Love
Every year about this time, I candidly discuss my complicated feelings about the Christmas season. To be clear, as always, I LOVE Christmas and the power of the true message of Christmas. My struggle comes from all of the things that sometimes surround and overwhelm the reason for the season.
Christmas can be extremely difficult for many people. In a season that places importance on family—gathering together, spending time, sharing gifts, and such—family time is not always a guarantee of happiness. Some of our friends and neighbors are lonely. Others are dealing with grief from the loss of loved ones. It may be their first holiday season without a family member. It may not be the first for others, but even as successive holidays get a little more manageable, they never go back to “normal.” Others may have a difficult relationship with family, so gatherings may be unpleasant or impossible.
If that was not hard enough, the commercial aspects of Christmas place extraordinary pressure on each of us to “perform” up to some arbitrary societal standard. We’re expected to perform with gifts, decorations, and all other manners of festive behavior, regardless of whatever other challenges life might be throwing our way. In his book, “Conversations with Wendell Berry,” rural author Wendell Berry keenly observes:
“People who love each other need to have something they can do for each other, and it will need to be something necessary, not something frivolous, You can’t carry out a relationship on the basis of Christmas and anniversary and birthday presents. It won’t work.
You have to be doing something that you need help with, and your wife needs to be doing something that she needs help with. You do needful, useful things for each other, and that seems to me to be the way that a union is made...You’re being made a partner by your partner’s needs and the things that you're required to do to help...Love is not just a feeling; it’s a practice, something you practice whether you feel like it or not.”
Nowhere is the pressure of Christmas captured better than Merle Haggard’s timeless classic “If We Make It Through December.” I write about this every year for a reason. In the manner that made him one of the finest storytellers of 20th century America, Merle paints a stunningly accurate picture of a parent’s deep dread for Christmas. The song’s narrator has just been laid off. Prospects are grim. He has no real idea where his family is going to turn. That is bleak, no matter the season. But again, the societal pressures make it worse. In one of the most heartbreaking lyrics ever penned by a country music writer, Merle sings:
“I don’t mean to hate December
It’s meant to be the happy time of year
And my little girl don’t understand
Why daddy can’t afford no Christmas here.”
It does not have to be that way. Merle’s protagonist did not love his wife or daughter any less because he did not have the money for Christmas gifts. That father’s love is shown by his undying hope—hope for a warmer season, hope for a fresh start in California, hope that if they could simply make it through December, they’d be fine.
As our calendar turns to December, I want to encourage each of you. If you are struggling this season—with grief, family difficulty, loneliness, financial pressure, or otherwise—please know that I see you. Please know that your ability to “perform” in the Christmas season does not define you, particularly regarding your love for others. Love is not defined by presents. It is defined as Wendell Berry describes, through practice. It is defined by the hopeful-despite-circumstance narrator of Merle Haggard’s song.
This Christmas season, I encourage us to focus less on arbitrary standards of Christmas success and more on what really matters. Love one another. Lift up one another. Remain hopeful. And don’t just feel love or buy a present—practice love, whether you feel like it or not.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.