Unless something snags my blog attention, this writing effort will finish out my Light Fixtures’ blogs for 2012.
These last two months are holiday-heavy, as two distinct celebrations appear on the calendar: Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving is centered on gratitude and is often more community-minded, when those without family nearby may be invited to sit down at their friends’ dining tables for the special dinner (we’ll be doing just that, joining friends at their home for supper); Christmas, however, is usually more family and religious oriented.
In a way, these two holidays might even be considered to be bipolar, e.g. Thanksgiving, even with football on the TV (yeah!), is often felt to be more “laid back” and less activity-targeted. The Christmas season, however, is definitely a more hustling and bustling time, complete with holiday Noels, demanding shopping lists and, on the big day, gift unwrapping, kids playing with toys, and family togetherness.
The only snag with comparing Thanksgiving and Christmas is that within both, there can emerge up’s and down’s.
And that leads us to the connection with Light Fixtures’ protagonist Aurora. As a young teen in 1963 who’s discovering the onset of teen bipolar, Aurora is slowly beginning to grasp that her manic depressive moods reflect an imbalance, even as she spends time at her beloved grandparents’ NW Louisiana home and enjoys the family event of making homemade vanilla ice cream.
But maybe that’s the best place to be when one is facing a challenge of ascending and descending moods: (especially as they often surface during the holidays) a place that offers no expected protocol behaviors, just peace, understanding, and hopefully, thankfulness and joy.
Leave a Reply