LETTERS FROM KRAMPUS: the Fourth Letter to Spoon

Dear Spoon,

Sometimes, the holidays can be overwhelming - even if you don’t celebrate any or the same ones as your friends and neighbors do. There seems to be a kind of expectation in the air that you will join in the shopping and the parties and life will magically get better.

Trust me, Spoon, you are not the only person who feels left out right now. Yours is not the only family that stays put and stays quiet because there’s nothing in the pantry to bring to a potluck and share. But the answer is not sacking you and taking you away; you are not a burden. That wouldn’t give your family more, but less of the hope and motivation it needs to survive.

Sure, a buffet is great, but look closely and you’ll see that many of those people hauling hams and chucking cheesecake into their pieholes are starving, Spoon - their hearts haven’t been full for ages. That’s where the feasting should really begin, but these lost souls are down at the Costco thinking a bucket of shrimp dip will stop them from hating their lives. It won’t. It never has.

The heart is the thing we need to feed first, and it’s not a picky eater. It likes hugs and stories and made-up games played on threadbare carpet. It likes blanket forts and shadow puppets and the cookies you scored at the food shelf. It likes dreaming aloud, counting its blessings, and saying, “I love you!”.

All of this is free and available whenever you need it. This is the spirit of Christmas … and of every other day, too.

If being our best selves depended on hot cocoa and gingerbread, Santa’s elves would be the sweetest things imaginable; instead, they’re horrible little pieces of rat-like vexation with candy canes wedged up their … uh … they’re awful. The reindeer are great; the elves are garbage.

And you’re not, so no sack for you.

Be merry, Spoon, from the inside out, and have the best holiday yet.

Always,

Krampus