Releasing the Notes

My daughters had a school event last week where they sang Christmas carols to the community. They set up bleachers in the front of the school, and the students stood on them, singing. The people attending could walk from group to group to listen to them sing Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Over the River and Through the Woods, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. It was fun to watch the faces of different kids light up as they found their people in the crowd; the brightening eyes, the big smile, the excited wave to a random audience member. I loved it.

There were stations where they were giving out hot chocolate, of which I am a large fan, and my boys enjoyed riding on our shoulders as my wife and enjoyed the night.

It was a quintessential small town event.

It gave me some time to think about Christmas songs and the other elements of how we celebrate this holiday. Having worked in restaurants for years during the Christmas season, there is a whole class of holiday music that cause me to cringe any time I hear them. Whether it is just because I have heard them too many times, or a few listenings have exposed a weakness in the musicality, or for whatever reason, I don’t want to hear them ever again.

There are others that I love. I tend to appreciate the faith-centered ones, enjoying Come O Come Emmanuel most of all.

Another style of Christmas music I love is off-genre carols. This is things like Christmas songs that aren’t all slow and sickly sweet, but rather fast paced and energetic. There was an album put out in the 2000s called Punk Goes Christmas that tickled my ear holes, and bands will occasionally put out similar songs for fun.

Along that line of music is a song originally written by Coldplay (I believe), then covered by Yellowcard, called Christmas Lights.

This song is one I listen to often, because as I ponder the Christmas celebrations, I tend to come back to the tradition of Christmas lights, because I find special meaning in them.

I haven’t always loved them. Hanging Christmas lights has had its moments, like the years when my dad would get so frustrated with them that he would be out, on the ladder, cussing the lights loud enough for the neighbors down the street to comment on it, or throwing them from the house out onto the road because he couldn’t figure out why they weren’t lighting up. I remember the hours we would spend with the light-tester, pulling out each light individually and testing if it worked before putting it back in the strand and moving on the the next one.

There was also a year in middle school where I was feeling very sick, but was still in charge of putting the lights on the house. While dangling over a ledge on the roof to put them on the hooks under the eve, a sharp pain shot through my gut, causing me to curl, reflexively, and needing my cousin to steady me so I didn’t topple forward off the roof. After finishing the lights, I crawled down the ladder and lay at the base of it in the fetal position. Later that night, I had an emergency appendectomy. While I know that it is almost impossible to know the exact moment your appendix ruptured, I feel like that may have been it.

As I have gotten older, I have forgiven the Christmas lights tradition for its attempt on my life, and have grown to appreciate the symbolism. There is something profound about the way we take the time of year when the nights are long and the world is dark and cold, and have worked lights into our celebrations or that season. While I have had people point out that it makes sense because that is the time of year when the lights can be seen best, or when the early darkness allows the lights to be seen by more people before they sleep, I have chosen to believe it is more meaningful than that.

The darkest time of the year causes spikes in mental illness reports, and in suicide attempts. The amount of time spent indoors, and in the dark, have been studied and have shown to be part of that problem. Many people go to work when it is dark, spend their day inside at work, and then go home in the dark.

The Christmas lights tradition goes back to long before studies about darkness and depression, but I like to believe that the tradition is connected in some way. If not specifically about that time of year, I see that the tradition is meant to show that even in the darkest part of the year, there is light. And, yes, maybe the light is artificial, and it comes with social pressures to be as decorated as your neighbors (hopefully not to a Griswald extent), but there is beauty in the idea.

But the light that we need in our own darkest times won’t always be natural either. I am a big supporter of getting medical help when you need it. I have been on different anti-depressants for the past decade or so, and have changed medications over the years as I find the need. I have also done larger treatments, like ketamine, in times when it has been needed.

There was a Tshirt a few years ago that said, “If you can’t do homemade, store-bought is fine”. I loved that shirt, because it shared the idea that not everyone has the chemical balances in their brain working correctly. Your brain should naturally control mood based on chemicals, but not everyone’s brain can; mine definitely struggles. So, if you can’t do “homemade”, it is okay to find that balance through “store bought” methods.

I’m not always good at hanging Christmas lights myself, as I tend to struggle around the time of year they are hung with my own mental illnesses. I want to be better at participating in a celebration that I find meaning in, and I have good intentions every year, but I haven’t put them up for a few years. Maybe I will look into those permanent lights, and I can make it work that way. I really appreciate all of you who hang Christmas lights. It is a great reminder to me that even in the darkest seasons of my life, there are ways to find light. I may not be providing that light myself, and I may need to go out of my way to find someone who can offer that light, but the light can be found.

In my faith, the source of that light is the very person we are celebrating at that time of year. We find that light in the darkness through following Christ.

But while the holiday and my personal beliefs point to Christ as the source of the light, I also see the importance of finding that support through each other as well. Just like the lights are a reminder of the light we can receive through other people, we can give other reminders as well.

For my birthday this past year, I purchased myself one of the Dear Person Behind Me sweaters. They went viral for a while, but I also know that my algorithms tend to bring mental health supports to light, so for those of you, my dear readers, who don’t know what I am talking about, it is a hoodie with a positive message on it.

I love when people stop and comment on the sweatshirt. It happens every time I wear it, but my favorite interaction was with a cashier at our local grocery store. She is younger, and a little bit shy, but the last time I wore it to the shop she mentioned that she loved the hoodie and the message on it. We chatted for a minute about it while she rung up my groceries, and during that time she mentioned that she wanted to make a bracelet (like the ones that have resurfaced with popularity because of Taylor Swift somehow) that said “Enough” on it.

I loved the idea. I have toyed around with the idea since then, and I am thinking about designing an “enough” bracelet/shirt/whatever to share on here and use it to support mental health awareness as well. But until then, you should get a sweatshirt like this, spread the positivity.

I would normally post a link to an Amazon for a similar sweatshirt, but I love the Dear Person Behind Me company, so I reached out and joined their affiliate team as well. There are a lot of copy-cat products on Amazon from companies across the world, but if you want your money to support the company that is pushing for mental health awareness more than profit, check them out here. And if you do decide to purchase something from them, here is a coupon code for free shipping: DPBMGREGORYFREESHIP

Use it to be the light in somebody’s life.

The light in the darkness.

The light in a time when they can’t seem to make any light themselves.

Because, as Dumbledore says, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one remembers to turn on the light” (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).

Shine on, you bright light, you.