Same-Old Surprise

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The L.L.Bean catalogs faithfully arrive, one or two a week, it seems. A yellow Lab on each cover—there’s the “aw, so cute!” puppy all tuckered out on a tartan-plaid doggie bed; a handsome older dog on another cover, wagging its tail faithfully beside a handsome, wholesome-looking model sporting a classic field coat and leaning on a split-rail fence frosted in snow. It’s December alright; some things never change.

As the planet tilts deeper toward darkness and the calendar crescendos to year’s end, we burrow into the coziness of habit and surrender to the comfort of routine, or so it seems. December has become utterly predictable, playing out according to the same script, year after year. The catalogs trickle in, then the greeting cards and end-of-year nonprofit appeals. The town’s cheesy light-post decorations go up in mid-November, soon followed by Salvation Army bell-ringers and wreath booths benefitting the high school booster club. Wal-Mart brings out hideous blue-tinted poinsettias and columnists and bloggers chirp about How to Avoid Holiday Stress, with absolutely nothing new to say besides the usual blather about planning ahead, staying within budget and packing almonds in your purse to fuel shopping trips or curb party nibbling. Good try.

It’s all one big rerun: the same Rudolph with his misfits, the same recipes trotted out, the same-old Bing Crosby soundtrack, the same family holiday card photo op, in khaki and white, of course. The same old wish that this December—no, really—will be different. But the only thing that changes is the price of Christmas trees and my patience with it all. So at what point does the comfort of tradition collide with the triteness of repetition? When does the yellow Lab marketing gimmick get old? I confess that I actually crave much of December’s sameness. I need those well-worn Advent hymns. I want the Moravian Sugar Cake to taste exactly as it did on Christmas mornings when I was growing up—with the brown sugar so thick and goopy it’s gritty. I love recognizing the rumble of the UPS truck as it delivers yet another package down our gravel road. The familiar grounds me. It holds me steady when so much else seems haywire and haphazard. Even so, December’s predictability can begin to feel plain; red and green glitter becomes uniform and loses its glitz; the well-oiled holiday machine hums toward monotony. This season of celebration and expectation risks becoming as stale as last year’s crumbling gingerbread house, when it should be the crispest, brightest time of year.