We’re getting to the time of year when it's easy to be lost in the past. The same red bows are tied on lampposts in parks and outside dingy shopping centers. The same massive wreaths decorate even more massive malls. But with every passing year, the bows seem a little more at eye level and the wreaths are a little smaller. You bake the same cookies, and then suddenly a research project on salmonella makes you no longer want to lick the batter out of the bowl. While wading through homework, I’ve been reflecting on the holidays, which used to be documented by where I performed and when, but can now be tallied by which Christmas movies I watch, which treats I decide to enjoy and which cities I want to visit.
I started ballet when I was three or four. I was never flexible or invested enough to end up doing much more than taking classes and performing as a background character now and then. Still, it was a musical way to get my abundant wiggles out, so I kept at it throughout high school. When I was in second grade, I was cast as a mushroom in the Washington Ballet’s Nutcracker. This meant that for three months, I spent my weekends in windowless dance studios drilling my two minutes of stage time. I learned those two minutes so well that I could to this day perform it flawlessly, with or without the music. I was always a little sad to miss, or make an early leave from, yet another fall birthday party or sleepover, but the fun of putting on a show and my excitement for when I’d be under those stage lights in a pretty costume, smiling out at the formless audience, made it all worth it.
I started performing more frequently as elementary school became middle school, then high school. I played different parts in the Nutcracker, including at one point, a giant frog. I sang at Christmas masses and in choral winter concerts. I sacrificed a lot of social experiences, but performing was always exhilarating enough for me to consider myself the lucky one.
I don’t have any Christmas performances this year. I haven’t had any Christmas performances since going to college. Now the time I used to spend in dressing rooms under concert halls and opera houses is spent watching the Hallmark Channel and visiting Christmas Markets with my friends while visions of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree dance in my head.
My friend and I spent this entire semester, like last fall, discussing the super awesome, unbelievably cheap trip to New York City we were going to have once they put the big tree up. We both followed that tree as it made its journey across the country on Instagram. We didn’t actually end up planning our trip beyond sending each other reels of holiday markets and skating with the words “this will be us,” so we’re coming to terms with the fact that we’ll be staying close to Baltimore again after all. We’ll watch all the best Christmas movies and drink hot chocolate and bake Christmas snacks and go see Santa come to Fells Point on a Tugboat and watch the Washington Monument get lit up and venture into DC for the DuPont Circle Holiday Market or Old Towne Alexandria’s Holiday Market — or we’ll, more likely, get to do a small combination of a very tiny fraction of these plans that require no planning ahead of time.
When I go home, I’ll make the rounds with all my hometown friends and our traditions. I’ll go ice skating with my oldest friend at the very rink we frequented as eight-year-olds. I’ll end up at my high school’s Christmas celebration because my closest high school friend’s mother is making her go, and she doesn’t want to suffer alone. I’ll go to my old choir’s winter concert and watch the class who have never aged past sophomores in my eyes as the leaders of the group. I’ll probably find myself in the audience of that same Nutcracker show whose choreography I could perform in my sleep. I’ll relive past Christmases with no less enthusiasm for Christmas present. Over the years, whether I’ve spent my Christmas as a mushroom or dreaming of being a New Yorker for a day, the bows outside the shopping center have never ceased to make me smile.
Amelia Taylor is a sophomore from Potomac, Md. studying Writing Seminars and Voice Performance. In her column, she draws insights from seemingly random experiences that present themselves in the course of ordinary life.
