Year-end syndrome is upon us.  Everyone feels a little hung-over whether or not they’ve indulged. The holidays tend to be defined by how the whole year played-out, for better or worse.  In good years we kill ourselves constructing the “perfect” celebration, embrace hordes of friends and relatives with our hospitality, then sigh with relief when it’s all over.  In bad years we hunker down, turn a partially blind eye on grim reality and determine to maintain a brave face of cheer until the last visitor is wished well. Then we sigh with relief when it’s all over.

“Good” year or not, the season brims with guilt and regret; and with the certain knowledge that time is racing us all to one final Christmas, one final New Year.  Perhaps that is why some families do nothing but bicker over the holidays.  Perhaps that is why, statistically, so many lives end at this time of year…sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.    Both of my parents passed away in the week between Christmas and the New Year; one in 1986 and the other in the final hours of the twentieth century.   I couldn’t help but feel that this was somehow intentional on a deep interior plane.

2010 was rough.  Resources have been short in my household, but thankfully we have work now at the end of the year. Others have not been so lucky and face the new year with no relief in sight.  A plague of personal crises among friends and extended family tempers the forced gayety of the season this year, as each one silently reflects on the loss and challenges that lay ahead.  There is no gift that will ease grief, loneliness and desperation.

There are things to celebrate about 2010; but much of that has to do with circumstances not being quite so bad as they might have been.  So raise a glass (if only one) to 2010 as it fades into the acrid mist of memory.  Innocent of the future, we’ll tumble into 2011 and simply take what comes our way.