For countless people on the planet, “childhood” is a loaded word. Throw in “memories,” and now you’ve got the makings for a sudden slide into a dark and painful place. One that can suck you in like quicksand, leaving you fighting for your life in every meaningful way.

Most of the time, you’re able to shove those demons to the back of your mind, whether by distracting yourself with work or perhaps with more sinister means. Anything that dulls those razor-sharp claws that have sunk deep into your throat.

But then the calendar taunts you. Appointed human-made “dates” that burn like acid straight through to your soul at the very thought of them. An anniversary of some sort. A birthday. A memorable-for-all-the-wrong-reasons holiday or other event.

Or a supposedly “festive” season that is anything but.

Cue Christmas, one of the most commonly celebrated holidays in the world (if not the most, depending on which source you read). And I use the term “celebrated” loosely because far too many people are merely participating in it, albeit reluctantly, for various reasons. Not the least of which is that it amplifies every painful, rotten aspect of family difficulties that are all too often still present. Estrangements. Abandonment. Abuse. Hostility. Arguments. Criticism. Injustice. Alcoholism.

It’s even worse when you’ve had a significant loss around this time of year and with Christmas reminders screaming in your face everywhere you turn and magnifying your pain several times over, you can’t escape your grief. Tragedies, trauma, life-altering accidents — everything that hurts in life feels so much worse when it happens at this time of year. And you’ll be reminded of it for every miserable Christmas to come.

Like so many other people, I didn’t have many happy childhood memories and plenty that I spent years trying to forget. For a long time, I detested everything about the Christmas and the New Year season. I hated being subjected to those damned “Hallmark-style” adverts. Everything from hardware to jewelry to dishwashing liquid and anything in between was being sold against a backdrop of impossibly happy families grinning with their hot chocolate beside roaring fires and garland-laden mantles. All of it screamed about everything that was wrong in my family.

January couldn’t come fast enough.

The only thing that carried me through those years was doing what I could to bring some joy and excitement to the season for my children. The shopping, wrapping, trips to visit Santa Claus, decorating, baking cookies — I had a chance to see a bit of Christmas wonder through their eyes.

It helped, but it didn’t erase the deeper wounds that damned well refused to heal. Buried under those mounds of shredded wrapping paper and ribbon on Christmas morning, Real Life was hiding, doing its best to make me think maybe things could be better. Maybe the nuclear fallout that was my life could be salvaged. Maybe this time, it won’t all blow to hell. Again.

But Real Life is a rude son of a bitch. It doesn’t hide for long.

I spent most of my 20s being a church organist and choir director, trying to cram Christianity down my throat in a desperate search for “something.” I didn’t know what it was exactly. A sense of home? Family? Belonging? Yeah, sure, all of those, and I did get a little taste of them, just enough to make my time there palatable.

But the Christmas season was a challenge. I was the organist, damn it, and I had no choice but to show up every Sunday and for choir practice on Thursday evenings. And to sit through three, back-to-back Christmas Eve candlelight services, playing all those peace on earth and love and family blah blah blah carols, right up at the front where I could see everyone’s smiling, happy, thrilled-that-it’s-Christmas faces. And everyone could see me. I swear I earned a Ph.D. in Game Face.

In the Moravian tradition, at the end of each of those three torturous services, everyone was given a beeswax candle (handmade by the ladies in the church). The lights were dimmed as the candles were lit, and the congregants would sing either “Silent Night”, one of the most rip-your-heart-out Christmas carols ever written.

I could feel the love, closeness, and devotion of everyone in that sanctuary; it was in their soft smiles, their bright eyes, the way they stood so close to one another. The atmosphere was deliciously warm and lovely. But it wasn’t for me. I was the interloper. How desperately I ached to feel like everyone else in that room! How I longed to fit in, to feel the love and sense of family that was so easily palpable amongst the congregants. How cruel the universe was to taunt me with a front-row seat and rub my nose in that “Hallmark Christmas” feeling but not allow me to be a part of it.

The candles burned, the soft scent of beeswax filling the sanctuary. Sweet voices rose and fell in unison, amplifying how cut off I felt from all of it, from everything. From the ability to have — or deserve — happiness. I choked back tears while everyone sang, my fingers forcing themselves along the keyboard to play music my soul could not bear to hear.

Around that time, I had begun the process of therapy and what would be a years-long “adventure” in healing the damage caused by my childhood. My spiritual beliefs were also shifting as I explored my inner world. That path led me to other religions that did not celebrate Christmas. I can’t say I was too sad about that. Although I couldn’t escape the season entirely — I mean, it’s bloody everywhere— at least I didn’t have to involve myself with any of its trappings anymore.

If I’m honest, I did a little happy dance at having an excuse to ignore it. Well, as much as one can anyway, given that it’s … you know … bloody everywhere.

Although I had stopped observing Christmas in my own home, I still had to deal with it. I listened to friends who couldn’t wait to share their upcoming plans. I had to open their intrusive and unwelcome Christmas cards. I dreaded getting groceries. I couldn’t even pop into a shop and make a quick little purchase without some cheery salesperson wishing me a Merry Christmas. I wanted to wring their bloody necks.

Presumptuous a**holes. You can take your Christmas and …

Between the Stepford salespeople and all of those cheerful, chirpy, chatterbox friends and their bloody Christmas blathering, little did these people know they were picking off painful scabs, tearing open unhealed wounds, and throwing acid into them.

I hated Christmas. Hated it with a passion. But the rest of the world wouldn’t shut the hell up about it and leave me alone.

***

Over the next few decades, I continued on my healing journey. Layer upon layer, I worked at facing and then recovering from the abuse I had endured. From the most intimate violations by my mother to my violent sociopath brother to my father’s alcoholic rages, the ripple effect was powerful and long-lasting. But in my determination to find happiness, gradually I chipped away at coming to terms with all of it. Then understanding it. Accepting it. Forgiving it.

And finally, letting it go.

I had stopped chewing on old hurts and grievances. My heart and mind were ready to focus on gratitude — gratitude for peace, for what is good, for the many blessings in my world.

The more I did this, the more I let go of what I couldn’t change. And of what I couldn’t control.

I had no idea how powerfully these few differences would ultimately impact my life.

Along with a lot of therapy and more formal healing work, my spiritual journey was becoming ever more important and solid. I had come to terms with my abilities as a psychic and medium, which had frightened me since childhood. I could see clearly that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, to quote (in part) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Understanding that much bigger picture helped me to view my painful past in an entirely different light, extracting insights and deeper meaning from it that would alter the course of my life in the best ways.

It would set me down a positive path that focused on the numerous blessings that were everywhere, even in the hardest times. It would teach me gratitude for everything, even the pain. Especially the pain, because ultimately, it would be the best teacher I could have had. It would provide me with a richness of texture and fabric in my experiences and the most solid foundation for my future.

It would allow me to finally look back on my childhood and earlier adult years without hurting. Without conjuring images of abuse, of loathing myself, my life, wishing — praying — I could leave it, oh, dear God, please. Please.

And sometimes, I could even look back on those years and smile. Happier memories surfaced, each one a delightful surprise, like finding a buried treasure when I wasn’t looking for it. Soon, I had a collection of them that I could haul out and enjoy anytime, a proper bit of soul food after a lifetime of starvation. The horrors of childhood faded into the dusty corners of my mind, and the turbulence, chaos, and drama of my adult life began to follow.

An Unexpected Gift

With all of these changes gradually unfolding and cementing themselves into my being, one day, I received a quiet and unexpected gift.

It was a Friday in early December. I was living in a quaint little village in England, and I had taken myself off to a lovely old pub where I intended to spend the afternoon writing. But first, I would enjoy a delicious lunch and a glass of wine — or two.

As I sat by the fire and contemplated the beauty of the old pub with its ancient beams, aged wood, and country charm, my gaze settled on the gorgeous garland above the fireplace.

‘How pretty!’ The thought rolled through my mind as if it belonged there, and the surprise of that notion made me smile.

Just then, a Christmas carol drifted softly through the air, landing in my soul in the loveliest way. Wait. What’s this? What’s happening?

It had been decades since I’d had any sense of delight about Christmas, since those long-ago moments with excited children tearing into their presents, quick before Real Life reached out from under the mounds of paper and ribbon and sank its claws into my throat once again.

By the time I left the pub that afternoon, I was immersed in the atmosphere of Christmas. It was purely and simply about the “feel good” factor of kindness and compassion, about hope and possibilities, about bringing people together and remembering their humanity. Their divinity.

As I walked home in the growing darkness of late afternoon, my heart was lighter than it had been for some time. My mind wandered back in time, and as it drifted through snippets of memories, it was as though everything that had previously been so destructive had been rinsed clean. I saw the same old Christmases, the same people and events that had been hurtful, but I saw them through a lens of understanding and without the emotional charge that this holiday had always loved to exacerbate.

I saw that over the years, those places that used to hurt had quietly been filled with peace, contentment, and happiness, and with gratitude for my parents and the many good things they had done for me, and there had been plenty. I loved and appreciated them for their own pain and hardships, and the sacrifices they had made for me.

I found myself thinking about decorating and perhaps getting a Christmas tree. Apparently, something had been shifting deep within me for years without my particular notice. And it was this unexpected nudge from All Things Christmas that had brought it to my attention.

I discovered that I was happy. I was — and still am — truly, genuinely happy. Is my life perfect? It’s perfect for right now. It’s exactly as it needs to be in this moment. I’m not yearning for something outside myself to fill an aching emptiness on the inside — because that ache is gone.

That day at the pub gifted me with a whole new way of viewing Christmas. I had ignored it for 30 years, quietly moving from despising it to not giving it any particular thought. But suddenly, my heart was filled with joy and love for the season and all the good it represented. Instead of associating the holiday with all that was wrong or missing or hurting throughout my life, I saw the blessings and gratitude for all that was right.

As I made my way home on that crisp late afternoon, I fell in love with the twinkling lights, the bells, wreaths and garlands that decorated the charming old village, its cheery shops, stone walls and cottages. And in the following days, I shared in my friends’ excitement about their upcoming holiday plans. I delighted in hearing people in every little pub or shop wishing me a Happy Christmas, and I was only too happy to wish them the same in return.

For the first time, I allowed myself to embrace and delight in the warmth and sparkle of the Christmas season. No longer was it raking its razor-sharp claws across my heart and reminding me that my life and family were anything but those blasted, impossibly perfect Hallmark films.

I understood the sentiment they represented, the possibilities for family love and kindness, mended relationships, for “happily ever after” and dreams coming true. Instead of taunting me for what had always been missing, they reminded me of the love and friendships I treasure, and gave me hope that maybe someday, my own dreams could come true, too.

To honour the holiday, I’ve created my own simple traditions. I choose to be by myself (apart from a couple of Zoom visits with favourite people). I keep the fireplace fed with plenty of logs from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day. I wear my comfy “jams,” eating special snacks and charcuterie goodies. I drink prosecco and wine and hot chocolate.

The best part — I watch as many of those Hallmark-style films as I can find, even several I’ve seen before. The cheesier, the better.

And I love every single minute of all of them.

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