Puzzles, Picture Albums, and Board Games
In the center of the living room sits a large wooden coffee table. On top of the table are thirteen finished puzzles and two puzzle boxes. Twelve of the puzzles are small – scenes of Christmas featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang. One is large and intricate – a cityscape of brownstone buildings decorated for Christmas. Under the coffee table is a stack of magazines that usually sit on the table, a board game, a collection of our family Christmas letters from years past shoved into plastic sleeves contained in a three-ring binder, two candy canes, and a picture album. There is another picture album on the side table next to the sofa.
On the sofa is a soft and beautiful hand-crocheted blanket folded neatly in an attempt to protect it from cat hair – a present from a new friend shipped from halfway across the country. On top of the blanket is a pile of small boxes deemed worthy of saving. For now they avoid the fate of the bigger boxes already broken down and shoved into the recycling bin. Next to the picture album on the side table is a box of tissues and a half-consumed bottle of water – evidence that my mother occupied that spot for a good portion of the week she and my father spent celebrating the holiday with us.
A large orange cat sleeps on a wingback chair. On the end table next to him sleeps a skittish tuxedo cat finally relaxed enough to reemerge from his hiding place now that company has gone home. In the corner sits our Christmas tree, slowly browning and wilting as it clings to dry needles. On the floor next to the tree is a large brown throw pillow used to cushion the fanny of whoever was taking a turn playing Santa, handing out packages. Now the only thing under the tree are the previously low-hanging ornaments the tuxedo cat batted to the ground in a rare moment of defiant bravery.
Flat stockings hang from the mantle below a small collection of already discarded plastic crap on the shelf above. I often wonder if the cheap plastic trinket industry could survive supplying just skee-ball and claw arcade machine prizes without the boon of stocking-stuffer season.
We have decided to honor the Colorado tradition of keeping our Christmas lights up for the duration of the National Western Stock Show hosted annually for most of January in the livestock and rodeo buildings up by I-70. If we keep the lights up, we will likely just keep all of the Christmas decorations intact. Someone will discard my mom’s water bottle before it spills. Otherwise, this scene is unlikely to change for weeks. As life ramps back to unmanageable busyness, I will glance at those puzzles with longing even though I didn’t put a single piece in place.
Perhaps nothing signifies a change-of-pace from the manic anxiety of the other 51 weeks like puzzles and picture albums and board games. Preparations for Christmas are a whirlwind of frantic activity. But the week between Christmas and New Year’s is something else entirely. A guy could get whiplash from the abrupt downshift.
As a drinker, I viewed this week as a free pass for otherwise unacceptable behavior. Surely there was a meaningless bowl game between second-tier colleges I could watch as an excuse to drink beer all day. In early sobriety, this week was torment. It was slow enough to give me plenty of room to analyze how broken I was because I couldn’t drink like a normal person. Was I anxious and depressed because the festivity of Christmas was over, or was it because I was less-than and my neurological reward system was untethered by years of addiction? As an active, or newly sober, alcoholic, I was in too much pain to understand the question. The only thing I knew for sure was that I simultaneously never wanted the calm of the week between to end, and I could not stand to live in my own skin for another restless moment.
I can’t believe I could not see that which is so clear to me now in my eighth consecutive sober holiday season. I completely missed the point for decades. Nothing has the power of distraction like alcohol for me.
The puzzles and games and albums and pillows and gifts (both cherished and discarded) and stockings and tree ornaments and lounging cats – all of it was proof that a chore awaited, and that the annual month-long party was over. It was a signal. An indication. An unfortunate remnant. A post-Christmas living room wasn’t a thing to be enjoyed. Not for an anxious alcoholic. It was a temporary portal that connected a festive December to a dark, cold January. It was a necessary evil. It was something to be tolerated.
Peace and contentment can’t really cohabitate with anxiety and depression. I had to address the latter before I could even identify the former. Now as I sit in this room full of recent memories and proof that hussle-culture humans can, in fact, find a more suitable pace, the only thing I feel is love.
No anxious fixation that this will all have to be cleaned up eventually.
No sadness that it will be eleven months before I want to hear Ella FItzgerald sing again.
None of that. Just a contentment to which I did not have access when I looked for relaxation in a liquid toxin. It is really quite amazing.
And to think that for so long I viewed sobriety as a state of deprivation and penance. The truth is that sobriety, and the ensuing growth into a more viable human, has more to offer than I previously knew to ask for.
It’s a rewarding, simple message that it took me 51 years to understand. A relief, really. But I’m here now, with the lounging cats in the week between. A pretty cool place to be, physically and mentally.
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!
If you are ready to leave the feelings of punishment and brokenness behind in pursuit of the peace and contentment of long-term recovery, please consider joining us in SHOUT Sobriety.
10 Comments
Nice piece of writing, Matt. I really felt the stillness of an empty room that was recently bursting with activity and stuff and people and love. A sweet reflection on one of my favorite weeks of the year.
It is great to hear from you, Melissa! I’m so thankful to be awakening to what you already know about how great this week can be if I let it.
Hello Matt and Sheri…..it’s been awhile, but I love reading your posts. This one took me for an inward visitation to my own front room, post Christmas…..a lovely dive into the props in our lives that give it fullness and comfort, without needing any other stimulus. Your writing took me there. Thank you……..Dawn
P.S. Bruce and I are well and enjoying life in it’s simplicity.
I love where this took you, Dawn, and I’m so glad to hear you and Bruce are doing well!
I could feel the warmth from the peace and contentment you exude, a continued aspiration for me. Wish I could’ve see the orange tabby in the picture too. Happy new year and thanks for this blog!
Click this link for a pic of the yellow cat.
Poignant writing Matt. So true what you say about addressing the anxiety & depression before you can get to peace and contentment. May 2025 be another year of rewarding learning and growing
Interestingly, Anne, I’ve received a lot of feedback on that specific point. I think that is a lesson a lot of us have to learn. Thanks for your support, friend!
“has more to offer than I previously knew to ask for”
If only every alcoholic could gain this understanding before it is to late. Rather than believing that the removal of alcohol represents the removal of their very life blood.
Thank you for sharing this as I sit here snuggling my cat. 🙂
It is a hard transition, Melanie. Let’s keep talking about it, and maybe more people will get over the hump.