It has been a busy Christmas season this year.  Busy from my perspective, that is.  Introverts like to spend time alone, recharging.  Those with my kind of neurology, though, crave being with others when we crave it.  Even on a budget we’ve been able to anticipate the peace of Christmas Day.  For me, the rush began with attending my usual conference in November.  It always meets the weekend before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving was late this year.  The weekend before the conference we attended the Lehigh Valley Vegan s’MAC Down on Sunday afternoon.  Friday I was on a train to Boston.  I returned and spent Thanksgiving with some good friends in New Jersey and December came with the following Monday.  Since work fills in the interstices between weekends I really didn’t have time to catch my introvert breath.

That first December weekend we attended the Lehigh University Christmas Vespers.  This free concert is a gift to the community and was a quiet way to enter the season.  We used to attend a similar event at Princeton University, but Lehigh’s much closer.  Living near Bethlehem (Christmas City), we like to spend a day in the historic downtown, looking for stocking stuffers mostly.  This was the next weekend.  We followed this up with our annual visit to Christkindlmarkt.  By the time I was done counting on my fingers, there was one weekend left before Christmas.  Friends had invited us to dinner that Sunday night, a day after the Lehigh Valley Vegan cookie exchange.  This level of activity is more than I’m accustomed to, although it did remind me of how socially busy the Christmas season was in Britain, even for post-grads.  My wife and I came home from dinner, lit our Yule log, and quietly acknowledged the winter solstice.

So now it’s Christmas Day.  I’m awake at 3 a.m., like a kid.  It is a day when I don’t have to go anywhere.  And, most of all, it’s quiet.  The only sound is a great horned owl hooting in the woods across the street.  I value this day for the opportunity to be still.  A day for recharging.  Before anybody else is awake, I listen.  There will be music later this morning and it will be fine.  And I’m thankful for all the activities that led up to this point.  Tomorrow, it seems, I’ll be out shoveling as yet another winter weather system makes it way here.  But for now it’s quiet.  And a Christmas owl agrees to cease hooting after letting me know I’m not alone.