Nostalgia is one of the most magical feelings you can experience. Everything feels perfect in your memories, and all the negative parts of life go away. Nothing has more nostalgia than the holiday season. The break from school, time with family, lights, music, gifts, decorations and Santa Claus make it the shining star of many of our childhoods.
Now that we are older, some of the mystery and magic have faded away. Instead of focusing on the magic of the holidays, we have finals to stress over and are worrying about gifts for others. It can be depressing to see younger and older friends and family glowing with the magic of the season when you feel like you’re on the outside looking in.
“Back then it felt more like a holiday, and now it feels like another day, but with gifts,” sophomore Charlotte Lindgren said. “It lost the joy part or the magic.”
When we were kids, everything from hot chocolate on cold days to waking up on Christmas morning felt magical. As we grow up, we cling to these memories and try to find that same feeling again, even though we have lost our unquestioning belief.
“Everybody wants to view Christmas as a child or whatever the memories are from when you were a child and the feelings you had at Christmas,” social studies teacher Steve Auchstetter said.
While most of the magic came from our childhood sense of wonder and magic, that is not all it is. The Christmas season brings a very real magic to it with opportunities for giving and joy. We are now on the other end of that magic, being the givers ourselves. Seeing the look on someone’s face after giving them a great gift is the real magic of the season.
“Sometimes me and my friends will do a mini Advent calendar or give a small gift before Christmas,” Lindgren said.
Gifts come in all shapes and sizes, from large acts of kindness to cards and even quality time. That can be one of the best gifts of all because of the memories you make. In a season fueled by memories, the more you have, the better it is.
“I probably get even more into it as I get older,” Auchstetter said. “I still listen to the old classics on the radio. The music for me, the music I remember growing up with, the Christmas music I grew up with…I still listen to it today.”
Christmas music carries a great deal of nostalgia for the season. The songs that we listen to as adults are predominantly the same ones that we heard as children. These can feel comforting and peaceful to listen to while we remember times gone by. A study by the National Library of Medicine indicates that music has a great impact by being connected to our emotional memory. Listening to a song will bring to mind times when we experienced similar things. In this instance, nostalgia brought by Christmas music is intertwined with our Christmas memories, even if that song is not a part of them. When as kids we simply had to be awake to feel the holiday magic, now we have to seek it out a little harder.
Listening to Christmas music while doing different activities helps immensely. Attending The Nutcracker ballet or caroling are two activities that are not only a lot of fun, but can bring music and old memories into your new ones.
Christmas does not just have to be amazing for kids. There is a different magic in it as we grow up, but that does not make it less magical.
