Unless you have never celebrated a December holiday (and at least a half-dozen religions represented in North America celebrate a December holiday), you probably have fond memories of spending time with family, attending religious services, following traditions, and maybe exchanging gifts or getting them from a jolly, dubiously existent man. As someone who was raised Christian—Catholic, to be exact—I have always enjoyed the sort of traditions that many Christians have. Christmas was the time when Grandma came to visit, cookies were made, and special music was played and sung. I have a specific memory, which I'm not even sure is real, of decorating the Christmas tree with my mom, dad, and brother, while listening to Mannheim Steamroller, watching the snow fall, and drinking hot chocolate. Maybe it happened exactly like that, and maybe not. But it exists somewhere in my mind.

Now, unless you have never celebrated a December holiday, you probably have been let down by experiencing a December that didn't quite meet the expectations of your childhood, or the expectations that your mind has manufactured from fragments of past holidays. Perhaps now you're questioning your religion, or you moved away from your childhood home, or the dazzle of the holidays has simply gone away.

For me, Christmas seemed to lose its magic five years ago. In 2010, my family celebrated Christmas together, and whether or not it was perfect, it was close enough to my expectations. In the fall of 2011, two incredibly important things happened: I went away to college, and a few weeks later, my dad left my family.

I can only say that one of the most important things for a student going away to college is to have some sort of anchor at home that can be relied upon to tie them to the way life had been before. Otherwise, college is such an upheaval of lifestyle that it can throw a young person entirely off-track. The event of my father leaving significantly damaged my home anchor. Unfortunately, his mere absence was not the only result of his departure. When I came after a tumultuous first semester, ready to have Christmas break to snap me back to my home life, I was met by holiday apathy from the remainder of my family. The usual family gatherings were tentative at best, due to the situation. Nobody had put up the tree yet, and nobody wanted to. Stockings were not hung by the chimney with care.

When I convinced my mom and brother that we had to put up the tree, a compromise was reached: we weren't going to put up any of the sentimental ornaments that we had been collecting as a family for the last eighteen years, and I could do it myself. There was no hot chocolate, no working together, no Mannheim Steamroller. Just me, a tree, and generic shiny ball ornaments with no value.

Looking back now, I can understand why that holiday was the way it was. Perhaps it was even selfish of me to want to come home and have everyone put on a happy face so I could feel some semblance of order. Maybe the same memories that I wanted to recreate, others wanted to bury.

Even now, five years later, the holidays are not the same things that I remember. It is not assumed that my family will be together for Christmas, or even that everyone will have Christmas Eve off from work (thanks, retail). The hour we'll spend in church is the only hour I'll have spent in there all year. My brother wants all of our decorations to have a blue theme (what?). We retired the pre-lit tree we had for twenty years and bought a new one.

But we will see family. We will go to church. We will have decorations, some (not all) of which will be blue. We will have a Christmas tree.

Every holiday has traditions, because that's the essence of a holiday. Over the last half-decade, however, I've realized something important. Despite these traditions, holidays change, grow; they are never stagnant. They are alive, because they are part of us, and we are anything but stagnant.

In the time of year when holiday sadness seems overpowering, sometimes you just have to close your eyes and remember the ghosts of Christmases past, then let them go and dream up Christmases Yet-to-Come. I've learned that the holiday is what you decide to let it be. For me, it will be family. It will be Mannheim Steamroller. And it will be the most beautiful tree in the world.