I haven’t had yuletide goose bumps yet.  I might be too late, since my kids told me this morning that today is Christmas Eve. If I expect to get any warm soul fuzzies, I’d better get cracking.  

Sometimes the Christmas rush lasts for a month or more. The cold sky always looks bright. My kitchen is full of creativity. The children are giddy. Some years the trees are prettier and the lights along my front porch are perfectly straight. In truth, the celebratory mood often rises, not out of any profound belief in the significance of the nativity, but because happy things are swirling around me. In shorthand, good situations equal good feelings.

 Not this year. With a crisis to navigate and a dark emotional sky overhead, I have no reason to feel the joyous rush of Joyeux Noël. The ornamental displays feel like frauds, the lights swallowed up in darkness. I imagine half the world feels as I do, perhaps finding Christmas gloom and Christmas glee oddly juxtaposed.