120 Degrees

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

There was nothing perfect about that first Christmas except that it was a perfect storm of obligation, lack of planning, overcrowding, bad timing and taxation.

I mean, if you don’t count the miracles.

And yet,

we remember that imperfectly perfect Christmas. The one that started it all. And we chase the elusiveness of a perfect Christmas of our own. You know the one, that one time it all went so well. There was enough money, the food was abundant and exquisitely prepared, there was no tension; only fun, love, just the right gifts and snowflakes that began falling at midnight. 

And that’s the one we strive for every year, exactly like the last one, the best one, the childhood one or the Hollywood one.

Forgetting,

that perfect Christmases are like snowflakes, by their very nature, fragile and transient, melting beneath our gaze as we try to memorize and duplicate their patterns.

I learned today that when ice forms at the molecular level, the angle between hydrogen and oxygen atoms will always be at 120 degrees.That in the process of forming snowflakes only the angle is sure. Then, that angle, combined with changes in temperature, humidity, number of molecules and bonding opportunities, creates a snowflake that is one in a quintillion.

They say that comparison is the thief of joy. A quintillion is a 1 with 18 zeros after it so I’d say it’s nearly impossible to make a snowflake sad (despite the current usage of the term). But, if my metaphor holds, then every Christmas stands alone, created against the previous 364 days of change, growth, gravity, tragedy, taxation and miracles.

We cannot take inches away from growing children, add years or health to aging relatives, fill the empty chairs of people we have lost or discount the days we have spent both running from or pursuing our own evolution.Despite how beautifully everything fit that elusive year, we cannot force ourselves into the things we have outgrown or outrun. Time, temperature and bonding opportunities affect us too.

The sweetest, flakiest sugar cookie or the most beautifully decorated table cannot compensate for, or demonstrate what abundance has brought us and what sorrow has taught us over a 364 day span. 

And so, where do we invest the science? Where can the reliable 120 degree angle be put to work?

For me, there is great freedom and joy in possible quintillion types of Christmases. Tradition has its place but I have begun to prefer the weightlessness of just letting Christmas be what it needs to be this year and every year. As we tally what was and what remains, what has been added and what has been lost, then let us work with just that. My 120 degrees can then be a consistent striving to show love, generosity and intentional kindness instead of the less sure investment in giant inflatable snowmen and hayrides in the snow.  Whether it be a year of plenty or lack, let my 120 be an intention to give deliberate, thoughtful gifts. Let my spirit be peaceful and let my home offer the opportunity for rest from an often wearisome world. Let the people who gather at my table feel that they are known, loved, held and safe. Sometimes, laughter can be its own miracle, so let there be the kind of laughter that steals your breath and makes you cry the good tears. But, if there are any sad tears, let there be a community of us to catch them. And most of all, let me have eyes to see all the miracles, both the star and the stable kind, the shepherd and the wise men, the holy ones and the ones that are right there in your ordinary life, like a snowflake that has no twin.