Not Feeling "Christmasy" This Year? Perhaps This is Why..
Although most people seem to want to put the pandemic behind them and pretend it never happened, perhaps it was trying to give us a gift we're still trying to reject.
The Rorschach Inkblot Test was developed by a Swiss psychiatrist, Herman Rorschach, who literally splashed some ink on some pieces of paper and folded them in half. In doing so, he created, essentially, pictures of nothing. Asking a patient what they see in the blots, however, can help a mental health professional gain insight into a patient’s inner thoughts and feelings, which the patient might be unaware of themselves.
So, I’m going to do a kind of Rorschach test with you now. Below, I’m going to post two sets of pictures. I encourage you to scroll slowly through each set and try and identify how they make you feel. Then I’ll tell you how I suspect they make you feel and if I’m right, I’ll tell you why I think we’re all kind of feeling a little bit like that.
Here is the first set
I encourage you to pause here a minute and maybe go back through the above photos again before continuing on. I think you will find they evokes a certain feeling, but you may have a hard time putting your finger on what it is exactly. I encourage you to just sit with it a minute before moving on to the next set.
Now take a moment to look at these photos and think about how they make you feel.
Now, my guess…
My guess is when you look at the first set of pictures, you just feel tired. Not like “I need a nap” tired, but a sense of weariness that goes all the way to the bone. A kind of tired that no amount of naps are ever going to touch.
I don’t think any of us will be able to find relief until we understand what it is and where it came from. And what in our culture just keeps driving it.
Take a look at the top 35 highest grossing movies of 2019.
One year before a global pandemic - a literal global catastrophe - this is what we were spending billions of dollars and countless hours of our lives on.
Notice anything interesting about these movies?
Action, Adventure, Musical, Adventure, Action, Adventure, Action, Adventure, Thriller/Suspense, Horror, Action, Action, Adventure, Adventure, Adventure, Adventure, Thriller/ Suspense, Action, Action, Drama, Comedy, Adventure, Drama, Adventure, Drama, Drama, Action, Comedy, Adventure.
We collectively spent nearly one billion dollars on just a single action/ adventure movie (although it would probably be far more accurate to call it a war movie, which we are also obsessed with).
Lest you think this is somehow something new, check out this list of the top 20 highest grossing movies of the 1970’s.
1. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope Action, Adventure, Fantasy
2. Jaws (1975) Adventure, Mystery, Thriller
3. The Exorcist (1973) Horror
4. Enter the Dragon (1973) Action, Crime, Thriller
5. Grease (1978) Comedy, Musical, Romance
6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Drama, Sci-Fi
7. Superman (1978) Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
8. Smokey and the Bandit (1977) Action, Adventure, Comedy
9. The Godfather (1972) Crime, Drama
10. Saturday Night Fever (1977) Drama, Music
11. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Comedy, Horror, Musical
12. Rocky (1976) Drama, Sport
13. Moonraker (1979) Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
14. Jaws 2 (1978) Adventure, Horror, Thriller
15. The Towering Inferno (1974) Action, Drama, Thriller
16. Rocky II (1979) Drama, Sport
17. The Sting (1973) Comedy, Crime, Drama
18. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Action, Adventure, Thriller
19. Alien (1979) Horror, Sci-Fi
20. Love Story (1970) Drama, Romance
Notice anything familiar?
I have to admit, I crack up when people complain about their dating life and say “I just don’t want any drama.”
Our movie choices - the ones we literally spend billions of dollars on every year - would tell an entirely different story.
We are obsessed with action, adventure and drama.
We think our lives are boring, we think they have no meaning. One might argue, however, that Hollywood has sold us a bill of goods when it comes to what it is exactly that actually gives our lives meaning. They feed our unspoken beliefs that what we really need, what would really give our lives meaning is an adventure!
Which is a message, by the way, that militaries are also eager to promote. After all, what greater adventure could there be than going off to war to fight the “enemy.” And when we don’t currently have an enemy? No problem, we just create some shadowy, fictitious “enemy” we need to always be ready to engage.
In It’s a Wonderful Life (which, ironically, is not actually a Christmas movie) George Bailey becomes suicidal because he thinks his life is a failure.
Why?
Because he had big plans and dreams, he wanted to go places. He wanted his life to be an adventure. He wanted to save the planet, save the girl, run from wild animals and cleverly escape natives intent on killing him. Instead, he got stuck running his father’s bank and then quickly got “tied down’ by a wife and kids. He was surrounded by people in whose life he made a genuine and legitimate difference, yet he was depressed because he thought his life had no meaning because he never got to go off and have adventures.
He was depressed because of the difference between how his life was and how he felt his life ought to be.
When we think of “Christmas” and what we think it should look and feel like, it probably looks something like this.
What’s worse is that media (both mass and social) has convinced us that everyone else’s life does look like this, just not ours. Yet if there were a picture that could accurately convey what most of us look like on the inside during the holidays, it would probably look a lot more like this.
The truth is, we are all just exhausted. We actually faced the global calamity movies have been preparing us for forever and we survived - but not a one of us “saved the world” - although some certainly wore themselves out trying. We just found out what a literally impossible task it is. We don’t have the energy for what we think Christmas is supposed to look like.
But who told us that’s what Christmas is supposed to look like?
Well, the people selling you all those lights and ribbons and wrappings and bows and cookies and cakes and alcohol and all of the many, many, many things we now feel we have to buy to make Christmas… well… “Christmasy.”
But we’re exhausted.
And maybe that’s a gift.
Maybe we’ve finally worn ourselves out chasing and pursuing an impossible goal.
In 1991, Garth Brooks shot to the top of the charts with his smash hit Unanswered Prayers. Perhaps the pandemic was a gift no one in their right mind would ever ask for, let alone be thankful for, but maybe not all gifts look and feel like… gifts.
The pandemic forced us all to stop, or at least slow down. It gave us time to take stock, to re-evaluate how we were living our lives. It showed us in a real and tangible way the impact all of our going, going, going - not to mention our buying, buying, buying - was having on the planet. When we stopped going, going, going and doing, doing, doing -even just for a minute - brown skies returned to blue, murky water became crystal clear and animals suddenly appeared out in the open. The question is whether we will actually learn from those lessons or just go right back to all of our old, destructive ways.
Of course, there were some that were simply not going to be forced to slow down, even by a global pandemic. They just kept going, going, going, buying, buying, buying and doing, doing, doing. For some, who we called “essential” until they wanted us to show our gratitude in dollars and not just enthusiastic applause, stopping wasn’t an option. But the pandemic still gave them a gift - the gift of understanding what a truly impossible task “saving the world” really is.
In 2016, Tom Brady’s mother Galynn was diagnosed with breast cancer while he was battling a mandatory four-game suspension due to Deflategate. After spending months fighting the suspension in a long series of highly public legal battles, he finally acquiesced and chose to spend the time with his family. In a 2021 interview, Brady recounts a revelation he had on the golf course at Pebble Beach during that time.
“My wife [Gisele Bündchen] was walking out with my daughter Vivian. I had my nieces and nephews running up and down the fairway on the 18th. The Pacific Ocean’s on the left, waves are crashing and I was reflecting and having some perspective on the situation and realizing that this is what matters most,” Brady said. “Being with my family at a very vulnerable time. I was gonna do my best to forget about football for a little bit and catch up on some other aspects of my life.”
In my vernacular, I would call this God/ the Universe giving Brady a wake-up call. (S)He created a situation he could not run from that took him away from something that had most likely become an obsession - chasing One More Ring. As we know now, he chose not to heed the warning and went right back to football. While his mother spent the year battling cancer, he spent the year pursuing One More Ring. In the end, his obsession got him seven rings, but cost him many of his closest relationships.
I wonder if he might make some different choices if he could go back to that moment of profound realization on the golf course at Pebble Beach.
I wonder if, when he is old, those rings will provide him the same comfort his wife might have. My guess is no.
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36)
Perhaps the gift of the pandemic was to put us in a situation in which we could not just keep going, going, going, doing, doing, doing - endlessly chasing more, more, more. 1 Tim 6:10 is often translated as “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” but I believe a much more accurate translation would be something like “the relentless, obsessive pursuit of more is the root of all kinds of evil.”
More money.
More fame.
More power.
More likes.
More lights, more presents, more parties.
More, more, more.
We are dying of our own excess.
Perhaps we’ll start feeling “Christmasy” again when it looks a lot less glitzy and glamorous (and exhausting) and instead looks…
Simple.
Warm.
Inviting.
Perhaps this is what we really long for.
Grace and peace to you this holiday season.
May your soul find rest.
Robin