The Day After Christmas: A Lament

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The Day After ChristmasI took my own advice and wrote a lament to process my post-Christmas blues:

The day after Christmas is cold. Bitterly cold. And unseasonably cruel.

It haunts you like an apparition that never comes.

It teases: Next year will be better.

It lies: If you had only gotten what you wanted.

The crumpled paper and candy wrappers litter the floor like confetti.

The living room looks like a circus. If you’re honest, it kind of was.

By mid-day, the house is clean and empty. Sterile, even.

The tree, though still up, lacks its luster.

Family has long since gone home, and we are left only with our trinkets.

The loneliness sets in.

The mixed emotions collide and cloud our vision.

Was it the best day of the year, or the worst?

Did we find the true spirit of Christmas and recapture child-like wonder?

Or did we lose another piece of our innocence to the cynicism of adulthood?

We think back to the day that now seems so far away, so unapproachable.

We sang, we danced, but still wished for more.

We feasted and napped, but found no rest.

We waited and waited. And still, we waited more. For Christmas morning — when a child comes into the world and we become children again.

But when it came in all its glory, it still felt like we were waiting. Maybe we were.

Was this how the shepherds felt? After the angel songs ceased and they returned to their flocks? Was this the same let-down the magi experienced, when they began the long trek home and Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt?

Did they wonder, like I do: Was this it? All we had been waiting for?

A baby in a manger? A gift card and a hangover?

Every glory fades, and every coming goes.

There are no words to honor this. Only tears. And maybe the hope that there is still more waiting to do.

* * *

This was a “synchroblog” about Christmas. Here are some other posts:

← The Best Way to Overcome the Post-Christmas Blues
10 Books to Add to Your Holiday Reading List →
About the Author

Jeff Goins

I help people tell better stories and make a difference in the world. I live in Tennessee with my wife and dog. Follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

  • http://blog.cyberquill.com Cyberquill

    They should develop a morning-after pill for this and call it “Plan C” (as in “Christmas”). 

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      hmmmm… would it cause you to sleep until next Christmas eve? ;)

      • http://blog.cyberquill.com Cyberquill

        Sure, plus it would reverse immaculate conception.

  • Susan Panzica

    The day after Christmas – society’s collective exhale – is my birthday. I wasn’t depressed about it until reading your post. Just kidding!

    But it IS the most anti-climactic day of the year. Now I’m going to write a post embracing the day and give a shout-out to my family who so sweetly always makes it special despite it’s inherent drudgedom (ok that’s not a word but it fits). 
    Thank you Jeff for your excellent site. 

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Thank you, Susan, for your grace. Happy birthday!

    • http://www.facebook.com/mandyrtaylor Mandy Robbins Taylor

      It’s my birthday as well, Susan! :) (Happy Day to you!) As I read this piece I really got to thinking about how poignant it is that my day is a day of returns, a day of boxing and giving away, cleaning up and packing away, and facing emptiness with courage and hope. I find it suits who I am to a T, and I thank you for the beautiful reflection, Jeff.

      • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

        Facing emptiness with courage — I love that.

  • Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

    Very nice! Good work! :)

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Thanks, Anthony!

  • Anonymous

    “A baby in a manger? A gift card and a hangover?”
    One diminished at the worship of the other. 

    Still waiting.

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Well said.

  • Anonymous

    Ouch.

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      sorry? :)

      • Anonymous

        Perhaps I was a little too brief, huh?

        Like all good writing, this post cuts to the meat and does not compromise. You encapsulated what I’ve been feeling for years. As I get older, Christmas becomes an ever-escalating effort to temper expectations of what the day could bring.

        True Christmas magic belongs exclusively to kids and the better your memory, the more painful that understanding can be.

        So….ouch.

        Great post, Jeff.

  • http://www.zigazag.com/ Johanna

    Poignant piece, thanks Jeff. Sad to think that we’re just left with our trinkets. I have grown up kids and it is so lovely when they come ‘home’ for Christmas and (for a while at least) I can spoil them with trinkets of various denominations and a circus of activity. But as you say, “Every glory fades and every coming goes.” These days, it’s the coming that goes that gets to me. And so the anti-climax.

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Thanks, Johanna. I struggle with that, too, but I think there’s a lesson to learn here: that there is beauty in the waiting and that maybe our desires are for more than a mere day.

  • http://www.inpulsearts.com/Word Eddy Damas

    WOW! I agree with what you wrote Jeff. Even though I am about to start to write a blog post about the lament of Christmas, this will probably blow it! LOL

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Can’t wait to see what you have, Eddy.

  • http://jeremysconfessions.com Jeremy Statton

    I have 4 kids, and the day after Christmas is always a let down. Except. for the boy who got the DS, he just keeps playing.

    I guess it was 30 years before water was turned into wine. How did the whole earth remain silent as it groaned with expectation?

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Amen.

  • http://www.kellycombs.com/ Kelly Combs

    On of my favorite poems is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” now made into a song by (I think) Casting Crowns.  We’ve all experienced  that Christmas blue feeling, but “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.”  

    I posted a similar post Christmas night, ttp://www.chattykelly.com/2011/12/christmas-bells.html, for those feeling the blues.

    May we all come to have peace in the Prince of Peace on Christmas and forever.

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Well said, Kelly

  • http://sagoyism.com Josh Sarz

    Oh, you actually wrote a post about the woes about when Christmas starts to fade and transition toward a regular day. Heh

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      yep. :)

  • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

    I love your tie in with the Magi. I would never have thought about that but I think it’s true, they would have. 

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      thanks, Joe. love those crazy wise men. here’s what I’m learning: at some point, everyone (including Mary and Joseph) had to pick up and move on with their ordinary lives. and so must we. the difference is how we choose to spend those ordinary lives.

  • http://rebootingworship.com/ Jamie Kocur

    Thanks so much for addressing this. I deal with post Christmas blues every year and sometimes feel that I’m the only one who does. Thanks for letting me know I’m not alone. 
    I wrote my lament on my other blog: http://kocur.net/blog/?p=1868 

  • http://relevantbrokenness.com/ Marni Arnold

    I so relate to this post, Jeff. I read it yesterday, but honestly had to take some time to really let this sink in for me…because my personality always wants to know why I feel the way I do when I feel certain ways (especially ones that teeter on depression since my flesh is so prone to it). So in asking myself the hard questions…and in turn asking God them as well…I discovered something as I have watched so many post on their social media outlets today…there is a discontent with the present. So many of us, including myself, always are looking to the future. While we need to press on toward the future, we need to be ever mindful of  the present and live in the moments we breathe now. Savor the richness the seconds hold within them, because the here and now are now…and tomorrow will be whatever it will be. God knows what our tomorrows are…so why not rest in today…do what we can today to tomorrow will present itself as it needs to in His image (not our own)?

    I believe this is what I lament the most…the knowing of a beginning has come and gone, and I have no idea what tomorrow holds…so it brings me down. Yet, I am glad I am reminded today that today…this moment…the one where I scrawl these words out…the breaths I take, the sounds I hear, the thoughts I think, the love I have now…that is where the meaning in life lies. The present. This is the gift…the now. I am glad of this reminder, for it is now waking me up out of my lament and heralding me to live now, so tomorrow is embraced as the new present soon to come.

  • Scott Sandmeyer

    How depressing, but true. We did something different this year. No presents per se (except to the kids) but we made charitable donations to causes on our loved ones behalf and spent time talking about their effects on each of us. We really didn’t need more “staff” anyway and it brought us together to enjoy one another’s company for its own sake.

  • sweetpea

    I avoided the post Christmas blues this year because the “blues” came pre-Christmas.  I wanted this year to be different.  What was I searching for? Simple -this year I just wanted “real” communication.  The people who are supposed to be the closest to me were “too busy” to notice the indifference of the other 364 days this year.  Cards unanswered, phone calls not returned.  Too busy selling real estate. Imagine. Here is the irony of trying to put the “real” back into the estate.  So I wrote letters expressing my love for them and my sadness for this loss.  With the power of metaphor I tried to talk about building bridges and mending fences- imagery of construction. Back to  the “real” estate.  Perhaps I should have talked about “open houses” instead of open hearts?  So I dispensed with the protocol this year.  Materialism has occupied the place where they used to live. ”Don’t give the kids books, they wont read them-just give them money”-  I didn’t (because I never give money…) and I wondered where the copy of the “Velveteen Rabbit” that I gave my niece (now in her late thirties) ended up.  If only she had read the Skin Horse’s advice to the Velveteen Rabbit.  ” once you are Real you can’t become unreal again..it lasts for always”  Perhaps it will take a few more years to notice the Real. 
    Who knows?  This year at least, I had the” courage to follow my heart and my intuition”, as Steve Jobs wrote.  At Christmas, post Christmas, are we left with mere protocol. The same people saying the same things each year, and then leaving the rest of the year to be just like Bartelby?  Perhaps.  I am not blue. I am not searching anymore.   But I will wait nonetheless. Thanks Jeff. 

  • Grace Peterson

    I hope by now you’re feeling better, Jeff.  Holidays can be difficult emotionally. I always look forward to December 26th. Call me weird but I’m always glad when Christmas is over. I like routine and schedules and the holidays kind of mess up everything. I’m glad to be back in the swing of things now. I have hope that 2012 is going to be a good year for all of us. 

  • http://whatthisgirllearns.blogspot.com/ WhatThisGirlLearns

    I remember thinking as a child that Dec. 26 was the saddest day of the year. I’ve gradually learned to enjoy those quiet days afterwards, but I’m always aware that, as an adult, I’ve lost some of that wonder I had when I was young. I love how you mentioned the wise men and shepherds had to return to “normal life” also.

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  • Carol R. Resch

    hi Jeff, what up with writing about blues? always better after reading/writing. drugs:0
    I began writing my Christmas poety book around the first day of Christams, I now have 3 poems……….so much for getting writing done in the moment:( but it’s about old fashioned Christmases, so I can always go there, for they will never be alive again except in my mind anyhow! Will continue!!! Thanks for blog……..Carol R. Resch   facebook too.

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  • Anonymous

    “Every glory fades, and every coming goes.” And thank God they do. This is a mere foreshadowing of what is to come. :)

    • http://goinswriter.com/ Jeff Goins

      Amen. Thanks for finding the deeper meaning in this post.

  • http://www.tillhecomes.org Jeremy Myers

    Thanks for joining the Synchroblog this month, Jeff. Great lament, and so true. For various reasons, we celebrated 3 Christmas days this year. 

    Anyway, don’t forget to add a Synchroblog link list to your post. 

  • http://twitter.com/gritandglory Alece Ronzino

    This was beautiful, Jeff. A good and needed reminder…

  • http://www.theuniuni.com/ Payton_vege

    Amazing write-up! This could aid plenty of people find out more about this particular issue. Are you keen to integrate video clips coupled with these? It would absolutely help out. Your conclusion was spot on and thanks to you; I probably won’t have to describe everything to my pals. I can simply direct them here!

  • Leong Zhia Choong

    Great Post jeff ! haha ! although I don’t know  celebrate christmas always but i can share those christmas blues feelings through your post!

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