Christmas Blues or Bliss?

What is the meaning of Christmas? Easy! Love and peace! We all know about it and it is why those without the adequate support of family and friends have feelings of loneliness and restlessness that amplify into monstrous, unbearable emotions. We compare ourselves to others, and deep inside we all sense and feel the archetype of a happy, loving gathering of Christmas bliss. The peace…the glory…

Christmas stories occupy an infinite number of pages in literature. In fact, I believe all of us can tell a Christmas tale of our own—unique or meaningful, happy or sad, funny or tragic. In my memory, I have two horrible and two blissful Christmas stories.

On the 25th of December, the Urban Healers will host a small gathering: “My Christmas Story.” We will share the most blissful and saddest stories of our lives from 3pm till late. This will be an alcohol and drug-free event. Plenty of fresh mint tea will be served to help clear our digestive systems after all the Christmas parties we attended.

Here I’ll share one of my blissful Christmas stories. It’s happy and a bit mysterious…

I follow many traditions from different countries, but once a year I throw a Christmas Eve Party (Wigilia) according to Polish tradition, since Poland is my country of origin. I believe that Polish Wigilia (Christmas Eve Supper) is exceptional among other Christmas traditions. Nearly every year I collect lonely friends and acquaintances to celebrate the holiday with me. In 2016, I invited 9 people from 9 different countries and with 6 different religious backgrounds: Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Norway, Poland, Australia, USA, China and Japan, with Islamic, Zen, Buddhist, atheists, Christian Orthodox, and Catholic backgrounds.

I assigned a task to everybody according to their best abilities so it was easy for me to enjoy my time as well. Some people did the cooking following my recipes, and some did decorations, while others were responsible for cleaning. It was a truly happy and blissful event, with genuine Christmas joy which peaked while singing “Silent Night” on full volume in ten better or worse voices. There was a true feeling of oneness….and then a miracle happened…

One of the participants of the supper was a Chinese student, Joe, who at the time rented a room in my house. Sometime before, Joe and I had a small exchange of opinions on the situation in Tibet. He said that Tibetans should be grateful to China for all the help China gives them with the management of their country. I said that my opinion was quite the opposite and it was the end of our discussion.

One hour before the Christmas party, Joe left the house, telling me that he was going to buy a Christmas gift for our gift exchange. Upon his return, he put the gift under the Christmas tree as well as another extra gift, saying that one was just for me. After great fun with distributing and opening gifts according to the luck of the draw, I started to unwrap Joe’s present. He said, “I bought you the only thing that’s missing from our kitchen, a mortar.” I looked closer at “the mortar” …and started to play. It was a beautiful Tibetan singing bowl, the holy instrument used by Tibetans to pray for their freedom, among other things. Wow, I thought, what a meaningful Freudian slip on the day of peace and truce. Universe, you are totally crazy, playful, and unpredictable… such a beautiful manifestation. A small miracle.

He truly believed that he had bought a mortar!

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