People hate Christmas. They really do. When I was a child (a time period that includes the majority of my life so far, including the odd day or two in the present), I would listen to adults talk about how much they loathed the holidays, how the whole business was one earth-shattering headache, and all the other B.S. things adults say to rob children of that irrepressible (until it’s repressed) joy at being alive. I figured the constant holiday kvetching was some adult code, a secret language that let grownups conceal their glee over lights, presents, trees, and bottomless tins of sugar-laden junk food.
But now, as I trudge through the gulag of Penn Station, dodging sharp elbows and kamikaze suitcases, watching grumpy hordes line up to march single-file into dark, smelly escalators and pack into seats covered in earwax-scented upholstery, I realize that it was true. Here we are at the year’s only time of designated joy, and hundreds of adults sit in one collective shitty mood, traveling down the Eastern Seaboard to their homes and loved ones for the year’s designated “most wonderful time.”
As the train barrels South, one universal rule applies: the closer we get to our destinations, the further we revert to the angst, fears and stories of our respective childhoods. A woman searching for empty seats in Trenton starts screaming at her neighbors, her husband, anyone who will listen, with the desperation of someone who learned at 5 that she’d never get what she wanted unless she raised hell. A goateed hipster in a zip-up hoodie shoves a yuppie over who gets prime real estate in the overhead luggage bin, a classic application of the schoolyard lesson: “better to be the bullier than the bullied.” A businessman whines into a cell phone that “I aaalllways get stuck doing all the grocery shopping for everyone else,” his voice greased with oldest child resentment over having to constantly care for siblings.
At last, the train pulls into its final stop, and the terminal ramps flood with crabby masses clamoring for the exit doors. Sitting in the doorway, his location forcing everyone on the train to pass him, is a six-foot-four man in a Santa suit. He’s there for no discernible reason, neither collecting money nor wearing an Amtrak name tag. He’s just standing in the doorway, greeting every scowling face that races past. His lumberjack build forces our initial attention, but it’s his beatific grin that keeps it.
“Happy holidays, everybody,” he booms. “Peace and love to all. That’s what I say: peace and love. Why else did we all just trek all this way in some crazy little train car?”
The victimized yuppie cracks a smile next to me.
“A smile! I see one out there. An actual smile!” anonymous Santa crows. “What’s say we all try it? Hell, this holiday time is gonna come every year, like it or not. It’s gonna be crazy every year, like it or not. We can spend it unhappy, or we can spend it happy. I know which one I choose. Merry Christmas!”
The last two words seem directed at me (though it’s impossible to make clear eye contact through all the waxy fake Santa hair). For the first time that day, even as the suitcases and elbows make human mincemeat out of my limbs, I grin.