Holidays offer comfort in a time of great change
The moon sets beyond a Christmas tree Monday, above Overland Park, Kansas. Credit: AP/Charlie Riedel
The holidays are here. And it feels like we need them more than ever.
We need their traditions and their rituals, their reliability and their comfort. As we always do. It's been a while — nearly 60 years, in fact — since I felt like the ground was shifting beneath my feet as it is now. There's something happening here, and we don't know just what it is quite yet or where it's going, but the tectonic plates of transformation are on the move.
What else can you call it when our sources of information are exploding exponentially, assuming an infinite variety of forms embraced by people without sufficient regard for whether they are reliable, setting up endless battles over truth itself.
When an artificial intelligence arms race is underway with huge but unknown implications for business, government, energy, education and, yes, actual warfare, where the risk of conflict in space also is growing.
When a new federal government is about to take over, one that seems intent on adopting the tech ethos of moving fast and breaking things, and when cryptocurrency is being heralded as the new coin of the realm.
When our world is burning and flooding and drying out, all at the same time, when power alliances around the globe are shifting, and when international migration is at record levels with more people displaced from their homelands than ever.
When someone who allegedly assassinated a health insurance executive is lionized as a crusading avenger who justifiably channeled the public's anger.
When norms and rules of personal behavior that have guided us for eons are being stretched and torn in favor of a new ethos that makes the primary good whatever is good for oneself.
Against all that, the holidays with their gatherings of loved ones amid themes of peace and fellowship are a dependable salve, a comforting if temporary cocoon, a warm blanket in which to huddle.
You can count on the holidays, year after year, their magic still strong, their peculiar power flowing from all the other holidays that came before. They offer not just the embrace you need, but the same embrace you've always received.
And so they keep working and healing.
Except that the holidays morph, too. Traditions — even our oldest traditions — evolve. The change might be gradual, but it's real. Sooner or later, it plays out for all of us. We've seen that in my own family circles.
It's who plays Santa on Christmas Day and hands out the gifts. It's who brings that favorite family dish this time. It's who hosts the celebration and even what day we celebrate as families expand or contract.
This year, when my side of the family gathers for the Christmas Eve celebration, it will not be taking place on Christmas Eve but a few days before, the first time that's happened in decades. And we will be marking the occasion with only one of our elders left, an inevitable but profoundly sad part of the holiday evolution.
So much of what makes the holidays special are the people with whom we get to spend them. The strongest memories and warmest embraces come from them. So the absence of someone is the most difficult change to which we must adapt. As those absences build, it's sobering.
Eventually, that generation will be gone. And that will leave me as the oldest member of my family, a change to which I am not looking forward, but a change that I will have to accept. And the holiday celebrations will continue, different but familiar, with new traditions replacing old ones along a road well-traveled.
That's the thing about the holidays. Within their womb, we find the grace to accept the change.
Outside, the pace of change is so much faster, so much less predictable, so much more jarring. On these holidays, I hope we find the grace to deal with them, too.
Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.
Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
