Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville – did not. The Grinch hated Christmas – the whole Christmas season. Now, please don’t ask why; no one quite knows the reason.

~ How the Grinch Stole Christmas

For as long as I can remember, this time of year has filled me with ambivalence at best and terrible despair/ennui at worst. I could get into a whole navel-gazing exploration of why, and when, and various other investigative Ws.

But I’ll keep it short and sweet. Basically, I would like to at least try to get into the spirit of the holidays this year, and even though it might feel forced, my happiest memories of Christmases in recent years have usually come from going through the motions.

So this year, my motion, now that I’ve finally figured out how to add photos to specific albums, is to do one of those 30-day picture challenges. From now through December 25th, I will pick one thing each day, in no particular order, that makes Christmas still feel like the most wonderful time of the year, when I let it. Feel free to join in if you’d like 🙂

DAY ONE: THE FIRST CHRISTMAS SONG OF THE SEASON

This year (2011), I managed to avoid Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, and since I’m working neither retail nor restaurant, I kind of forgot about Christmas music for a minute there. Yesterday morning (I’m a day behind on this (already!)) was the Monday after Thanksgiving, and it had been a tough weekend. I was feeling all sorts of cynical and bitter about life in general, mostly because I was sad about feeling so dead inside when it came to Christmas. So I was wandering through Safeway in search of coffee, and a song started up: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” the Amy Grant version.

My knee-jerk reaction to Christmas music was less of a jerk, more of an instinctive flinch, and I couldn’t help but listen to the song. All at once, it filled me with feelings that defy logic and transcend time. As Amy Grant’s familiar and comforting (to me) voice filled the air in the supermarket, it wasn’t 2011. I wasn’t jaded and cynical and Godless. It was just…Christmas. And it struck me that if that feeling could still be triggered, maybe all hope for the season was not lost. “That glorious song of old,” still was.