Hello, fellow young urban professionals who celebrate Christian holidays!
Jessica Burgess
Clearly Unedited
Christmas is coming. Are you going to your hometown to spend it with family? What's that? You're not? Your plan is to lie sobbing in a fetal position in your apartment all alone next to your small faux tree that sits atop your Ikea coffee table?
Well, don't feel so lonely. People all over the city are sharing in this exciting new tradition!
Finishing your education and getting a job in the Big City is like entering the Promised Land, at first. New apartment, new friends, the freedom to go to clubs and bring home whomever (or whatever) is left at 2 a.m.
But what no one ever mentions is the high likelihood that you're going to be stuck working over the holidays, and unable to spend long restful hours snuggled in the warm nurturing bosom of your parents' house, eating their food, sneaking their liquor and pretending to resent their coddling.
Just a few years ago, I moved to a new city and was faced with my first holiday season ALL ALONE (ominous echo).
On Christmas Eve especially, I wasn't sure what to do. How do you mark a holiday when you're ALL ALONE (ominous echo)? Go to a bar? Nah, I still felt a few steps above "rock bottom." Volunteer in a homeless shelter? A good idea, except I hear they are often overstaffed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, due to the influx of lonely people estranged from their families.
Maybe, I thought, what I needed to fill the hollow emptiness was a good dose of churchin'.
So I turned to my co-worker, whose identity I will protect by calling him by the pseudonym "Schmeff," and said, "You want to go to midnight Mass with me after work?"
"OK," he said. He, too, was trapped in an unfamiliar city with no family.
Our shift ticked by. Suddenly Schmeff said, "They better do communion with turkey sandwiches at this church. I'm freaking starving."
"Me too!" I said. So instead of going to Mass, we ended up worshipping over margaritas and nachos at a 24-hour Mexican restaurant.
I spent two more Christmases in that city, and at each one, Schmeff and I celebrated with fatty foods, joined by the friends we'd made over time.
As it turns out, you don't need to be with blood relatives to have a family Christmas.
And you can always catch up on your coddling and liquor-sneaking needs over Easter.
Jessica feels like Italian food this Christmas. E-mail her at jburgess@quickdfw.com.
