MERRY (?) CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas.
I wish I could say I feel merry and that I am anxious for Christmas, but that would be an outright lie.
The holidays -- and all other significant days (hey, aren't they all significant?) -- seem to lose all luster and all meaning when the one you love is gone from your life. Instead, holidays become just another day one must endure on his or her way to the final day, the final hour, the final minute. There is no good reason to give Christmas or any other day any special weight or significance because it just is another 24 hours to fill with useless and meaningless activity meant only to eat up what little time you have left on this earth.
After all, Christmas is just an arbitrary day, a date chosen long ago to be the one day to celebrate the birth of the Savior. But really, shouldn't we celebrate His birth, His sacrifice, His example, His life every day? It seems rather silly of us to act as if Christmas is the only day to really celebrate the greatest sacrifice ever made.
But while the rest of the planet finds extra joy and additional happiness on Dec. 25, for some of us it is just another day to endure, to survive, to get through. We may do that in the company of family or friends or we may do that alone, with only our thoughts and sorrow for company. We simply can't find that extra joy or even regular happiness in a world devoid of the one we love. Oh, we may force a smile, pretend to be merry, even drink a little more than we should in the hope the alcohol will numb the numbness or that it will melt the iceberg that has taken up residence in our hearts. But nothing works, nothing can fill that which only can be filled by the presence of one person, the one we love with all of our hearts. Everything else is simply the square peg in the round hole. A nice idea, but it simply does not work.
In fact, these holidays sometimes are harder than any other day because that person is absent. We can handle their absence better on those days when everyone else is going through their daily motions and living out their equally meager existences. It is worse, however, on a day when the rest of the world seems to be filled with joy, with happiness and is surrounded by all the people they love, most especially the one they love the best. And we have to watch them and see, in them, what once was but now is not; to be reminded again of who and what is missing from our lives and how empty and meaningless those lives are without the love we had with them.
So, please, have a Merry Christmas. Just remember that for some, it is neither merry nor worth celebrating.