I Have No Gift to Bring

Here we go again.

Every November, I begin to fold myself up. It's an annual ritual of self-preservation, during which I hibernate, emotionally, against the impending onslaught of guilt and hostility and aloneness that rides to me on the backs of these holidays that everyone seems to love so much. I don't love the holidays. They aren't special for me. The traditions in which I take part are not my own, and the memories aren't warm or full of love. Most "Christmas" music makes cry. I don't have any drive to deck the halls with or bake anything.

Please don't think I'm a Scrooge. I just can't love something that brings me so much grief. I think about the lonely people. I think about the people with no homes. I think about the wonderful parents who cope with so much devastation because they can't afford to give their kids a mountain of stuff (and for what?). I think about the people I love whom I can't see. I think about the people who are alone because I won't let them see me. I think about all the different Christmases, in all the different places, with all the different families to which I never really belonged, who are all currently preparing to carry out all those family rituals in which I took part while I was there, and who are not thinking of me at all.

I put on the show every year, go along with whatever is expected, and I smile, and I pretend to be having a good time. And in some ways, it is a good time, and maybe some day I'll grow to love the things that seem to bring so many people joy. But for now, every November, I begin to long for January, when it all goes away.

December does have one thing going for it. "The Little Drummer Boy." It's one of my favorite songs. I sing it to myself all year. It captures Christmas for me in a way none of the other carols can, and it helps me to see a little place for myself in this swirling typhoon of tinsel. "'Come,' they told me; 'a newborn king to see'": a humble, timid little boy, being dragged along by the exuberant, confident people around him, expecting him to be excited about expressions in which he is too poor to have any business participating. "I have no gift to bring that's fit to give a king." But he goes along with it, because he has to. When they shove him into the spotlight before the king, he offers, his head bowed and a blush on his face and tears in his eyes (in my version of the story), the only lowly scrap that he has—himself. "Shall I play for you?" And Mary nodded.

The last lines of the song are a searing hot dagger of of everything unbearable right through my heart, every time they pass through my mind. I love them. I love them so much. "I played my drum for him. I played my best for him. And he smiled at me. Me and my drum."

At Christmas, I feel so terribly poor in the midst of wise men and kings, offering their frankincense and myrrh, their lights and trees and traditions and songs about chestnuts and reindeer. But when it comes down to just him and me, and all I have is this little drum, I think he probably still smiles. Because what I have is enough for him, if for no one else.