A Christmas Season like none before

 

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 27, 2020

 

            This is the strangest holiday season of our lives. Thanksgiving had to be celebrated without the dining room full of family and friends. Rules imposed by a deadly pandemic limited our gatherings and our opportunities for travel. There were no group shots of all the family and guests gathered at the table or on the porch.

            The Centers for Disease Control has strongly urged people to stay home for the holidays, and some states have created obstacles to interstate travel, such as quarantine of people arriving from another where the pandemic roars. Air travel is down sharply. Who would want to confine themselves in a metal tube for an hour or more with dozens of strangers, not knowing whether they are infected?

            Christmas shopping in 2020 will be unrecognizable compared to previous years. Many people will limit their gift shopping to online only rather than search through malls and stores for that special gift. “Black Friday” sales still exist, but without large crowds jostling before displays and checkout counters. Masks are required, and social distancing makes the crowds less hazardous.

            Even Christmas’ religious roots will be challenged by this pandemic year. Churches that are usually packed for Christmas Eve services will be less crowded this year, if they are still offering in-person services at all. The pandemic has devastated churches as civil authorities imposed restrictions on crowd size. In a year when congregational singing is forbidden because of singers’ likelihood to spread the Coronavirus, will we forgo beloved Christmas carols? Will anyone “go a-caroling”?

            Many households, including mine, are curtailing Christmas decorating. The Evening Optimist Christmas tree lot, where I picked out and bought a tree year after year, is in business again but on a diminished scale. The Optimists are less optimistic about sales; they ordered fewer trees this year.

            In a year of dark pessimism, some people are fighting back with light. Daylight-Saving Time has just ended, and the earlier darkness hangs over us like a dust storm. Lights in windows, on trees, on porches, on tables, in front yards, in stores are an antidote to the bleak sadness of a holiday season lacking in brightness and joy.

            This Sunday, Nov. 29, is the first Sunday of Advent, a too-often overlooked season of the church year. It celebrates the birth of the Christ Child and offers a time of calm reflection before the excitement and stresses of Christmas Day.

            This year, Christmas gatherings will follow Thanksgiving’s pattern — canceled or greatly limited.

            Churches will celebrate the sense of anticipation during Advent, awaiting arrival of the Messiah. Advent wreaths and Advent calendars give children and adults a means of counting the days until the wait is over.

            We veterans of a pandemic that killed a quarter-million Americans will be waiting, too, waiting for the holiday seasons of 2021, by which time vaccines and therapies should have Covid-19 banished or under control, and we can gather again, sing again and feel joy again.