My 2020 Christmas Message, Such As It Is

Posted on December 24, 2020

Dear You Who’s Reading This,

Boy, we didn’t see this year coming, did we? I’m not entirely sure, if I’m honest with you, how to sum 2020 up. Perhaps the kindest thing we can say about it is that it’s almost over. I mean, we still have each other, right? Well, that’s not entirely true either.

I said goodbye to a 30 year friendship this year, and to that friend. There are still many times throughout a week I think about wanting to drop him an e-mail when I get home to ask what he thought about a TV show, movie, book, or news story. We spent 30 years doing this, and writing together. But that’s gone now. He’s gone. Another victim of cancer. And, let’s be honest, the wife, kids, and parents he leaves behind deserve the sympathy. They continue to mourn his loss. I continue to mourn his loss.

The absence of my parents and grandmother hit me again this year–this month, actually–hard. I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t exactly expecting them all to be gone now either, so, really, throw all expectations out the door. Going to work, going to the grocery (a former friend used to call going to the grocery store “going to the grocery”, which annoyed me at the time, and I now find kind of charming in an odd way), or even going to pick up a meal is like playing a game of Russian Roulette. Will people be wearing a mask? Will they stay home if they’re COVID+? Will they venture out and think “the hell with everyone” because they feel it’s their God-given right to be irresponsible?

I wish I knew what 2021 will bring for us. I’d say it’s what we choose to make of it, but we’ve seen what people chose to make of 2020. I’m not impressed. I wish I knew if Ralph and I will be able to travel again. I wish I knew if we will continue to forge ahead into our 26th year together without doubts, self-doubt, and with some proper self-esteem. I’m hoping I’ll also publish my next book in 2021.

Will the world calm down? Will our leaders here in the US learn to stop treating the country as their own personal board game and realize they represent all of us, not just themselves? It’s not about political parties. It’s about us. All of us. It’s about the world, a world that’s gotten a whole lot larger as I’ve gotten older.

I gotta say I miss my childhood. I miss the times I still believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. I miss believing in magic. I miss believing in never ending love. I miss believing in goodness triumphing over bad. I miss thinking we’ll live forever just as we did when we were kids. I miss the taste of Twinkies 45 years ago. I miss the nachos Mom would make as a snack on a cold, snowy day. I miss playing with my first dog in the snow. I miss the limitless imagination we had back then, and the ability to do so much with so little.

Perhaps, if I had a holiday wish for all of you who are still reading this, it’s that you keep your own favorite memories alive, that you make your own kind of magic, and that you never give up trying to make this life…this next year a little more special, especially when it’s for someone worse off than yourself, because there’s always someone worse off. Take some time for yourself, too.

Don’t let the dreams die.

Be you.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year,

Kristoffer

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Kristoffer Gair (who formerly wrote under the pseudonym Kage Alan) is the Detroit-based author of Honor Unbound, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell, several short stories featured in anthologies (to be combined in a forthcoming book), the novella Falling Awake, its sequel, Falling Awake II: Revenant and Falling Awake III: Requiem.