About ten years ago I was driving down a highway in Colorado in December when I saw a beautiful display of white lights adorning two tall pine trees outside of an office building.
I was heading back from a work meeting towards home, which at that time was a house I was renting in northern Colorado. I hadn’t lived in a single-family home since childhood and there was something that felt very permanent about it, even though I was just renting.
There was a yard, a neighborhood, a cul de sac, and all of the things you expect to see in a make-believe town such as one we built as kids using Legos. The lawns looked just like those flat green pieces where we stuck the conical tree figures and laid the multi-colored bricks to build houses.
It was my first holiday season in the house and I remember thinking, as I passed the tree-trimmed lights on the highway, “I should put decorations up on the house.”
It seems like a simple thought, but for me it was quite novel. I was never really the type of person to take time to decorate even the inside of my house.
I’ve moved about a dozen times in my life. In every place I’ve lived I’ve avoided hanging pictures, decorating or making the place feel homey.
In every place I lived, my mom would eventually come for a visit, remark on the walls that had been empty for a year or more, and she’d help me hang pictures, buy throw pillows for the mismatched furniture, and find other ways to make the space feel “lived-in.”
Coincidentally, after every one of her home-makeover visits I would end up moving shortly thereafter.
There’s probably some psychological explanation for this but we’re not going to go there today.
As I continued my drive up I-25 North I thought about why people take the time to put up lights and decorations for different holidays or seasons, when you just have to take them back down a few weeks later, and then find a place to store everything, which you know is going to be in some dark corner of the basement and everything will be stacked in a completely inappropriate way such that when Valentine’s Day rolls around, the boxes on the top are all full of Halloween paraphernalia and you have to play holiday-box jenga to find that damn heart-shaped wreath and cupid lawn ornament.
It always just seemed like a waste of time, until I realized that we really don’t have much in the way of ceremony in our culture.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss these “simple” acts of celebration.
My international travels through the years also shined a spotlight on the lack of ceremony and ritual in our culture.
When I traveled in Bali there were little shrines everywhere in front of shops. They looked like miniature grottos filled with brightly colored flowers and sometimes pieces of fruit, meant as offerings to their gods. It was not only a devotional gratitude practice, but it also brought visual appeal to the streets–the bright colors and the intention behind it just made you feel happy and at peace.
At one point in my life I read about a “new moon ritual” where you write something you want to let go of (a thought pattern, behavior, person, etc) down on a piece of paper and burn it. The new moon is meant to represent new beginnings, so it is appropriate to let something “old” go to make space for the new cycle.
I think when I looked at those roadside holiday trees that night, I realized that ritual and ceremony can be as simple as joining in with the celebratory attitude of the people who delight in changing the front-door sign every season, or who put their holiday lights up as soon as Thanksgiving is over, and who start planning their St Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage dinner party right after they wake up from their New Year’s Eve hangover.
I thought about the things that brought me joy as a child that didn’t seem like a chore back then. I realized many of them were ceremonial in a sense.
I loved decorating the house for Christmas. I took on the job of putting the miniature winter village together on the fireplace mantel. I imagined living in that picaresque town, holding the book of carols and singing under the wreathed lampposts in the town center.
I loved playing the Christmas records on the Victrola (yep, dating myself) and I loved our annual tradition of driving around on Christmas Eve to look at all of the lights in the neighborhood.
There was one neighborhood, in particular, where every single house committed to putting those paper-bag lanterns out all the way down the sides of their driveway and all along the sidewalk in front of their respective homes, creating miles of candlelight.
Just looking at the seemingly infinite glow of lanterns took off the chill a dark and bitter-cold New England winter.
That scene also demonstrated the way ceremony, celebration and ritual could bring a community together to create something that made perfect strangers want to come see it and be a part of it.
It’s easy to forgo participating in these kinds of festivities or putting the effort in to create ceremony around special dates, seasons or holidays, especially as adults.
But I have come to believe it is really important to create space for celebration, whatever that looks like.
It is just as important to practice personal rituals that celebrate ourselves as it is to join in community to celebrate various days, seasons or special occasions.
Typically I take the day off on my birthday every year. I spend the day alone, doing something I love, thinking about all the people that have made me who I am and being thankful for my health and the health of those whom I love, including people that have played roles in my past and are no longer part of my current life.
Today I took the afternoon off a few days ahead of my birthday, which falls on a Sunday this year. The weather was gorgeous and I wanted to take advantage of my favorite season and the sunshine that is slowly making its “Irish goodbye” earlier and earlier these days.
During my solo drive to visit various orchards and farms throughout the quintessential New England towns in my area, I opened the sunroof and listened to songs I haven’t listened to in years; songs that brought memories and people to the forefront of my mind, making me sometimes smile and sometimes sigh, but always bringing a kind of contentment and gratitude for where I am in this moment.
I bought my favorite coffee drink from a local farm-to-picnic table restaurant and sipped it as I passed through corridors of autumn’s version of Christmas lights, the sun illuminating the bright reds, yellows and orange from behind–my version of the stained glass church where many other rituals are performed.
I designed my own ritual.
I gave myself the challenge of finding the best cider donut in the area, attending 5 different farm stands to procure my “contestants.” I’m feeling a bit sick as I write this, but it was totally worth it.
It was only a few hours of alone time, but I noticed how FREE I felt.
I felt like ME again.
It is so easy to get lost in our daily activities, duties, routines and responsibilities.
Finding or creating a ceremony or ritual that turns our thoughts inward and that helps us re-ignite the joy we often de-prioritize is such a GIFT.
This is the birthday gift I give myself every year. I highly recommend it.
I am still working on bringing more of the holiday culture into my space. Most of the decorations still sit in storage boxes in the basement without making an appearance at their own party each season, but I try to at least take one or two things out of each box when the season’s change.
I really do believe it’s important to acknowledge the changing of the seasons and join in on the limited celebrations we all share in our very disconnected world.
It is also very important to acknowledge the changing seasons of our lives.
I hope you find a way to create ceremony, ritual and celebration in community…
and also within yourself.
Happy everything, to you!