Festive Season ✦ Secure

The festive season is a trick we play on time. For a few brief weeks, we pretend that generosity is the default, that family is always functional, and that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. It is a lie, of course. A beautiful, necessary, life-affirming lie.

In the northern hemisphere, it is the scent of cinnamon and clove battling the smell of wet wool coats. In the south, it is the sound of corks popping from bottles of crisp Sauvignon Blanc under a setting summer sun. Whether you celebrate Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, or simply the joy of a long weekend, the festive season is a universal paradox: it is the most exhausting and the most euphoric four weeks of the calendar. What makes this season magical is not the decorations, but the permission it grants us. For eleven months of the year, we are pragmatic creatures. We budget. We diet. We say “I’m too busy.” festive season

This is the season’s cruel genius: it demands joy, and in doing so, reminds us of every joy we have lost. The first Christmas after a death. The Diwali where the phone doesn’t ring. The New Year’s Eve where the countdown feels like a funeral bell. The festive season is a trick we play on time

You laughed until your ribs hurt. You danced badly. You ate the cake. You held someone’s hand a little too long. A beautiful, necessary, life-affirming lie

By J. Harper

The festive season magnifies everything. If you are happy, you become euphoric. If you are lonely, you become desolate. If you are grieving, the carols cut like glass.

Here, we perform the ancient act of breaking bread with people we love—and people we tolerate. Here, Uncle Bob tells the same joke about the turkey neck. Here, the children build fortresses out of dinner rolls. Here, someone cries in the bathroom, and someone else follows with a glass of wine and a hug.