Now it’s christmas again. And pleasant anticipation begins quietly to stir, while we decorate and bake and approaching the big night.
advent Calendar and christmas traditions. Crocodile Dundee on the TV 2 and the 90-year birthday just around the corner. Everything is as it usually is. And it feels safe and cozy. For christmas has brought blessed commandments, and now the joy of old and young… Happy christmas, lovely christmas. And yet.
For even a happy tradition about the birth and salvation colliding for many along with life-changing times, and often to the joy and peace keeping christmas, side by side with grief and missing.
And how do you do it? How do you create space for all the feelings at one and the same evening?
When I think back on my own memories about christmas and christmas eve, they are divided into different time periods. There was time back with grandma and grandpa and our recurring ’rullepølse-tradition’, where we rolled the sausages in their kitchen with marzipan and nougat. With my mother, every year pulled the old julekasse up from the cellar, and the man with the big eyes was looking forward to revisit all the familiar christmas decorations.
Then there was the time with two juleaftener, which started with mother and ended with my father. It worked really fine enough, as my mother’s family started off the evening a long time before my father. And so there have been many adult years, which were divided between my family and my ex-husband. Every two years here and every second year there. All have been wonderful in their own way. And stopfyldt with christmas atmosphere and juleglæde.
But even if christmas carries many lovely traditions, will naturally feels and is celebrated very differently, as life goes. My own father was the champion of to join our big family for christmas. First it would he most like to be at home, but he also put an honor in making it ’right’ and traditional. He was the family’s big gathering, and gathered us all. Young and old, in-laws, grandchildren, lovers and men.
But the most important thing is perhaps neither a person or a place as a focal point for this evening. For what is it really that bring us together that evening in our various life situations? Ultimately, it is most of all about a common mood, a presence and a good energy or perhaps rather a spirit. No matter where you sit, who you sit with, and how you now have it.
I’m not particularly a christian. But I have however, heard of the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit a few times like most others. And particularly here up to christmas. And, for me, is the holy Ghost been an equally essential part of christmas as the cool sauce and the roasted potatoes.
Perhaps especially now because of the family’s recent deaths. But maybe also because we are in the year must be a brand new constellation of family members of someone who has never kept christmas before. Namely, with me. Which can be fairly anxiety-provoking, since I’m not exactly santa claus in a kitchen.
But what does it really mean – the holy Spirit? A combination of something sacred and something of the spirit. According to my friend who is a priest, it means the holy Spirit: God’s invisible presence right now. And more beautiful it can hardly be said. Namely, that God is particularly present in this christmas time, and that it is his presence that can bring together us.
Whether we are sad or happy. Whether we are many or few. For it is a presence of a special character and strength. A presence of the infinite and unconditional love. It is the holy Spirit that can bring us on the christmas table and juleglæden, and gather us on the christmas tree and the christmas presents and gather us on the juletårene and juleminderne.
Times to come,
sometimes needs to henrulle,
the lineage must follow slægters time.
Never forstummer
the tone from the sky
in the happy pilgrimssang.
(from the Lovely is the earth)
merry christmas!
Sarah Zobel
Sarah Zobel is a psychologist and author. She is the mother of three children and the author of three books. Find her on Instagram: sarah_zobel9.
