The Ghost of Christmas Past

My mother and I are discussing plans for Christmas dinner. I will have a full house, including my parents and a long-time friend staying with us. "Now," says Mom, "I don't want you running yourself ragged, trying to do everything." I literally laughed out loud. What an absolutely ludicrous thing to say. That's simply not who I am. I said as much, and after we hung up, I found myself puzzled. Why would my mother ever imagine me behaving that way? And then I realized...

I would behave that way. I have behaved in precisely that way. Many, many times. In an iteration of myself so deeply buried beneath the rich soil of my evolution that I'd apparently forgotten she ever existed.

With my mom's reminder, I do remember being this woman. She would decorate every square inch of the house. Alone. Garland, lights, ornaments galore. The houseplants were decorated. The front yard was festooned. The stockings were hung with something that went beyond care, into territory possibly qualifying as mania. Every light and ornament must be perfect.

Also bordering on manic: the housekeeping list. Every room in a 3,200 square foot home had to be flawless. The fact that no one would enter most of those rooms was inconsequential. The closets must be tidied, the front porch spiffed up. Baseboards, kitchen cupboards, light fixtures--deep clean it all. Every space needed to be perfect.

What could you bring to dinner? Nothing, darling! The woman I once was would cook every morsel. Dessert, too! All from scratch. She had the perfect menu planned (naturally! maniacally?). Truly unfortunate, those times when things did not go according to this plan. In such an instance, you'd find this woman in the bathroom crying. What else was she to do, if everything was not perfect?

The tree. The lights. The meal. The table. The outfit. The hair. The gifts. The music. Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect.

Run myself ragged? Try to do everything? Yes. Yes, I did that.

Post Mom-comm reflection, I breathed a sigh of relief to realize that this ghost, at least, had quietly crossed to the other side. First a living reality, then a nagging haunt, eventually a memory, and finally a memory so long buried as to be forgotten.

That's the way, with ghosts. It begins with an intention for evolution. We identify a way of being or acting that we no longer desire and we put in the work to shift it. What once lived in us begins to die by design.

I started by letting people bring a dish to Christmas. A dish I chose for them, of course. At this early stage, that perfect menu was still so important to me. But it was a start.

When a guest asked if they could help me with something, I began to say yes. Would you kindly set the table? Would you like to see if everyone has their desired drink before we sit down? Thank you for your help.

Releasing these small pieces of control took as much, if not more, effort than doing it all alone. But this effort was conscious in a way that my twinkling, glitter-dusted mania had never been.

By degrees the death continued, as it most often does. It takes time, this unbecoming. Sometimes months, likely years. We must intentionally choose the new way, again and again, before the default programming is rewritten. Each time someone asked if they could help or bring a contribution to dinner, I had to pause, short-circuiting my usual answer. I had to choose to change, over and over.

Slowly, subtly, the new way of being takes hold. We begin to automatically exhibit this evolution. At first this happens occasionally and it's quite noticeable, a cause for celebration. (Yes! Yes, you can help me! And look at me, accepting help!)

As we continue to choose with intention, these moments come more frequently, until what was once the default fades away and a new norm emerges. My family now walks into the kitchen and dives into whatever they see that needs to be done. They know their help is welcome and there is no longer a master plan they must follow.

Here, the old way of being is much like a curtain moldering in an unused room. Slowly but surely, it becomes less viable. It fades to transparency. And then, at some unmarked moment in time, it quietly disintegrates. The time of noticing this decay is long past. There is no celebration here, just a quiet drifting of dust motes beyond the perimeter of attention.

The new way is no longer new. It becomes what is, now as automatic as the old behavior once was. Today I ask people to bring a dish and --gasp!--let them choose what they'd like to contribute. The need to control the appearance of a perfect holiday has died. This new me is much more interested in enjoying my time with my friends and family. It's refreshing.

And...something stirs the garland from time to time in this stage. The old ways have died, but a ghost lingers. When we enter the unused room, our eyes dart to the window, expecting the curtain. We may reach out to pull it aside. What once was is no more, yet it is not fully gone.

These ghosts show up in the most interesting ways. We may find ourselves saying words we've said a thousand times, only to realize they are no longer true. Perhaps we begin a familiar course of action, only to find ourselves surprised to be doing something we've not done in so long. Whispers, tinklings, a wash of cold--sure signs of a haunting.

Though my Christmas ghost is beyond the veil, I still notice haunts in other areas of my life, times and places where an old way of being whispers out of the dark. This fall I hosted a bawdy poltergeist of busy-ness, running rampant through my spaces causing me quite a fright. My mental lights flickered. Chairs flew across the open spaces in my heart. I very nearly ordered an exorcism. And then I remembered...

This is no longer me. This is merely an apparition, the immaterial substance of who I once was. Seen for what it was, the ghost grew quiet. Perhaps it mopes nearby right now. If so, I am blissfully unaware.

But the ghost of Christmas past? It is no more. I am certain, because of the immense quiet I heard after the conversation with my mom. Not a single chain rattling. Not an echo. Not even a whisper.

And this, my friend, is my holiday gift to you. Know that this story is already true for you, in one area or another. Know that you'll rewrite this tale again and again in your life.

First, the effort to create the shift, the intentional death. Next, the haunting, the times when what you thought had passed appears to rise again. And finally, the silence. The space beyond any continued existence of who you once were. The place where you can truly and completely forget you were ever such a being, only to be randomly reminded when discussing what kind of dessert goes with ham.

Each of these phases is natural and ever so human. So, if the holidays bring forth some of your ghosts, remember: this, too, shall pass. One day you may have a conversation like mine, where you wonder why someone would ascribe an action or attitude to you, only to realize they're talking about a version of you that is well and truly past (or passed). When you do, raise a glass of cheer to your ghost of the past, and to yourself for the gift of letting them go.

Photo credit: Andrey Soldatov via Unsplash