JOHN FOUNTAIN: At the core, feeling holiday joy again

The voice of the little chocolate brown girl in the silver cart at Walmart rang like an angel, settling like a fresh snowfall upon my soul.

“Fros-teee, the snooow-mannnn…” she sang loudly and carefree, shopping with her mother in the Christmas section. “…Was a jolly happy soul,” she bellowed.

The little girl jumbled most of the song. But not “Frosty, the snowman…” Not “jolly happy soul…”

Her delivery was without pretension, completely devoid of reservation — as pure as the driven snow.

She sang over and over, her joy as tangible as the rows of twinkling trees, endless shimmering strings of garland and goo-gobs of other holiday doodads for sell.

My eyes fell upon a lighted reindeer and sleigh with red bows. I was also leaning toward grabbing a half-dozen lighted candy canes to go with my outdoor Christmas ensemble to which, days earlier, I added a giant LED black Santa that I stumbled upon at another store. (I call him Shaq-ta-Claus.)

I am in the spirit again, finally — the Christmas spirit. For years, it has been on hiatus.

I wasn’t exactly Ebe-Negro-Scrooge. But since the joy of Christmas was sifted from my soul, my long ago purchased reindeer and multiple strands of holiday lights — mostly with the exception of a giant wreath — have been confined to a corner in our basement.

I used to light our big evergreen in the front yard that made the whole block glow. I used to brave the outdoor cold with half-frozen fingers to string the bushes and anchor the reindeer. Used to inhale deeply the frosted still breath of Christmas that made me tingle.

I used to…

It was a slow, mostly subconscious demise. A process spurred by the harsh realities of life. By deaths. By worry, bills and stress. By the arrival of trouble, sickness, loss and sorrows to be carried in a season when everything and everybody seems to exude peace and joy — and expect you to do the same.

“Good tidings.” “Peace and goodwill.” “Merry Christmas.”

“Whatever… Blah, blah, blah,” I thought to myself.

Indeed I found myself during Christmases over at least the last eight years, longing for the Ghost of Christmas past. Longing for voices and faces on Christmas Eves once filled with laughter, with the scent of completeness and contentment over possessing life’s most precious, priceless gifts, which can’t be purchased at a store, handcrafted or gift-wrapped.

Like mothers. And fathers. And grandmothers. Like the lives of loved ones too soon departed, having forever vanished from us like cinnamon-scented wisps of wind.

I am admittedly among those who found the memories of my beloved dearly departed to be both curse and blessing. The latter: because we remember. The former: because we remember.

For years, as an adult, I had already battled Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, even before I knew the name for the dark hole that weeks before Thanksgiving — with the full-blown holiday season on the horizon — I fell into. Usually, by Thanksgiving, I’d manage to climb out, though not without some degree of struggle and weightiness that I eventually learned to mentally unpack.

But not without developing a strategy that included avoiding isolating myself from others; learning to forgive others and, most importantly, myself; and by embracing the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference…”

And not without time.

Time….

It is healing, calling me, back to Christmas, in the angelic voice of a little chocolate brown girl in a silver cart.

And I feel the joy again — in my soul.

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com