I grew up believing Christmas was supposed to feel a certain way. The TV specials and the church programs promised warmth, wonder, and a kind of uncomplicated joy. But that never matched what I felt in the back seat of our Ford LTD on those winter drives from Yankton to my grandparents’ home in Hampton, Nebraska.
We traveled at night. The car was its own small universe of heater breath and cold glass. I’d lean my forehead against the window and look up at the stars, trying to imagine the Christmas Star—the one the shepherds followed. I never found anything that felt like a sign. Just the hard winter sky over Highway 81 and the quiet I carried inside me.
People like to say the 1970s were simpler. Maybe they were for some families. But even as a kid I knew that wasn’t true for me. Something in me felt older than I was. Heavy. A sadness that didn’t have a name yet, only shape. I didn’t talk about it. You didn’t talk about feelings in those days, especially not the dark ones. And only children learn early to keep what hurts to themselves.
The small towns along the way—Stromsburg, David City—glowed with Christmas lights. They should’ve lifted my spirits. They didn’t. My grandparents’ house was always full when we arrived: cousins, coats, smoke, and the noise of adults catching up. We kids were expected to put on a Christmas program. Play an instrument. Sing. Recite something. Prove we belonged. I hated every minute of it. I wanted to open presents and disappear.
The traditions felt heavy too. The paper sacks with our names written in blue ink—peanuts, a few hard candies stuck together, an apple or an orange at the bottom. Old-country Mennonite generosity. I held the bag and felt like I was supposed to feel grateful. Mostly I felt tired.
But what I remember most is stepping outside.
The porch was quiet, the yard crusted with snow, the horizon lit only by a single bulb on the grain elevator. The sky went on forever. Nebraska winter has a way of stripping everything down to what’s real, and what was real for me was this: I wasn’t happy, and I didn’t know why. I only knew I felt different from the people inside the house, different from what the season demanded. It wasn’t rebellion. It wasn’t anger. It was a sadness that felt older than me and somehow truer.
Years later I’d learn the word depression and realize my mother carried the same kind of ache. But back then, all I knew was the cold window of the LTD and the stars that didn’t answer back.
I don’t think the world has changed as much as people claim. Christmas starts earlier now, and the lights are brighter, but the same loneliness still sneaks in around the edges. The same pressure to feel joy you might not have in you. The same quiet knowledge that some of us were built to sense things deeper than others.
When I look back, I don’t feel sorry for that kid. He was already learning a truth that took me decades to name: some sadnesses don’t mean you’re broken. They mean you’re awake. They mean the world touches you more than it touches other people. They mean you were paying attention.
And maybe that’s why I kept looking for that star.
Not for a miracle.
For direction.
Same as anyone else.
