I put up the Christmas tree on November 30th this year, couldn’t wait. Something about the way the air changed, the early dark, the heaviness I’d been carrying around like a second coat... I needed twinkle lights and garland now, not in two weeks, not after the rush of shopping or the wrapping of deadlines. I needed to believe I could manufacture cheer from muscle memory.

So the tree went up, the stockings came out, and the Spode Christmas tree plates made their annual debut. They were a surprise, a gift from dear friends who are our “bonus” set of grandparents. They sent cases of the patterned china last year: tea cups and saucers, plates and bowls, serving platters big enough to feed a crowd in my absolute favorite pattern. I cried when I opened the boxes.

Now they come out in full rotation from Thanksgiving through the first weekend of January. Even when it’s leftovers or cereal, even when it’s just me at the kitchen table between meetings, I use this priceless set. It’s a kind of ritual. A way to say: this moment matters.

Because the truth is, this December is hard. I feel overwhelmed by everything: work, school schedules, the brittle pressure to “make it magical.” But more than that, I feel cracked open by the world outside my window. By the violence unfolding in places I love. By the streets of my beloved Chicago filled with fear and fury. By the way fascism doesn’t even bother to hide anymore, it marches in broad daylight now, waving flags.

And still. We hang garland. We sing carols. We set the table with our finest dishes.

Because joy, in a season like this, is not frivolous. It’s protest.

Joy says: I will not go numb. I will not look away. And I will not stop making beauty where I can.

It’s not the first time I’ve had to wrestle joy out of unexpected materials. I think back to a Christmas in Florida, maybe a year or two after we’d moved from Pennsylvania. I was eleven or twelve, and my parents, equal parts practical and exhausted I’m sure, brought home an artificial tree. Plastic. I was outraged. I wrote in my diary that we were having a “disgusting, plastic Christmas,” and every time I passed that tree, I sighed with the full moral authority of a preteen betrayed.

But then my dad, handy as ever, rigged the lights to come down from the ceiling fan in our vaulted living room. No wires on the floor, just white lights on the tree cascading down like stars. And one night, someone stopped by and told us how beautiful the tree looked. I paused and really saw it: tall and sparkly, full of ornaments from my short life and my parents’ longer one. Art class projects and antique glass. It was stunning.

That year, something shifted. I was surrounded by my parents, still young and healthy. My brother, not yet off to college. My little sisters, fully steeped in Santa and reindeer lore. I don’t remember a single gift I got that year. But I remember the feeling of being part of something, of helping create the magic instead of just waiting to receive it.

That’s what I’m holding onto this year.

So I will set the table. I will sing songs loud for all to hear. I will string lights through this broken world.

Not because everything is okay. But because it isn’t.

Because in just four short years, my oldest will be off to college, and his brother not long after. And while they’re long past the Santa years, I feel compelled to fill our home with memories: classical carols from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir like Dad always played, batches of fragrant spritz cookies like Mom used to make, Elf movie nights, and silly pranks from our own family canon.

Because we all have to find joy in the face of terror,
to tether ourselves to the people we love,
to remember what we’re fighting for,
and to keep the lights on in our hearts and homes,
for as long as we possibly can.