The Christmases That Changed Me — and Why Every Day Can Still Be Christmas

I should probably begin with a confession.

I wanted to beat Mariah Carey.

Yes.

That Mariah Carey.

This whole Christmas music adventure started, at least partly, because I became fascinated by “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

How does one song become part of Christmas for millions of people?

How does something created decades ago come back every year, almost like taking the decorations out of the attic?

I wanted to understand it.

And somewhere in that process, in my usual very reasonable and modest way, I decided:

Why not try to beat Mariah Carey?

I should make something clear before Mariah’s lawyers start looking for Zangerolame.com.

I have enormous respect for what she created.

Her song was not only something I studied. It became a genuine inspiration for me.

But somewhere between the ridiculous ambition and actually creating my own Christmas music, something changed.

I stopped thinking only about Christmas songs.

I started thinking about Christmas.

My Christmases.

The people who were there.

The people who aren’t here anymore.

The people who weren’t there before but are part of my life today.

And the person I was during all those different Christmases.

Because Christmas changes.

And apparently, so do we.

When Mom Looked a Little Different

When I think about Christmas as a child, I think about Brazil, family, traditions and all those little details that probably seemed completely ordinary at the time.

One of those details makes me laugh now.

Christmas was pretty much the only time I remember my mother touching alcohol.

She might have a couple glasses of wine.

As a little boy, I knew something was different about Mom.

She looked different.

She acted just a little different.

I didn’t know why.

Now that I’m older, I know exactly what was happening.

Mom was a little tipsy.

That’s it.

Nothing dramatic.

Just Mom having a couple glasses of wine at Christmas.

And I love remembering that.

Because our memories don’t always need to be profound.

Sometimes the little things are what make someone real again for a moment.

You remember their expressions.

Their habits.

Their laugh.

The things they did once a year.

For a few seconds, you’re not remembering a person who is gone.

You’re remembering Mom.

Then Christmas Became About the Children

Eventually, I wasn’t the child waiting for Christmas anymore.

I had children of my own.

There were Christmases with my first wife and our family.

There were presents to buy.

Things to wrap.

Traditions we created without necessarily realizing we were creating traditions.

When you’re living those years, you don’t always understand that you’re building somebody else’s childhood memories.

You’re just trying to get everything wrapped.

And now I have grandchildren.

Which introduces a problem my parents never had.

Amazon.

My grandkids have figured out the system.

An Amazon box arrives?

There is a very good possibility that something inside belongs to them.

Apparently, Amazon has destroyed one of Grandpa’s layers of Christmas security.

You can wrap the present.

You can hide the present.

But first you have to survive the arrival of the Amazon box.

And those are exactly the kinds of memories I love.

I am still looking through old hard drives for another one.

Somewhere, I believe I have a photograph of my former wife’s cat among the Christmas decorations, playing with the ornaments or possibly attempting to destroy them.

I don’t remember precisely what the cat was doing.

But I remember enough to know that the Christmas spirit was apparently under attack.

That’s Christmas too.

Not the perfect photograph.

Not everybody wearing matching pajamas in front of a professionally decorated tree.

The cat trying to eat Christmas.

The Table Changes

Then there are the Christmases we don’t put on greeting cards.

My marriage ended.

There was a first Christmas after divorce.

My mother died in December.

There was a first Christmas without her.

Years later, my father died.

And there was a first Christmas without him too.

At some point in life, you begin noticing something about the Christmas table.

It changes.

People who once sat there every year aren’t there anymore.

Sometimes because a relationship ended.

Sometimes because children grew up and built lives of their own.

Sometimes because people moved away.

And sometimes because someone we love died.

Then new people appear.

Children become adults.

Grandchildren arrive.

Friendships begin.

The table changes.

Maybe that’s one of the hardest things about Christmas.

We repeat so many traditions that we expect the people in them to remain the same.

But they don’t.

Neither do we.

December Can Hurt and Still Give You Something New

December is complicated for me because my Mother died during this month.

Christmas can carry sadness.

There are songs, smells, decorations and little traditions that can suddenly transport you somewhere you weren’t expecting to go.

But life did something interesting.

Christmas has also given me something new.

There is a friendship in my life that had already been quietly developing for quite some time.

We had been around each other for well over a year, but around Christmas we shared our first meaningful meal together.

Somewhere around then, an acquaintance gradually became a real friendship.

So now, alongside some difficult December memories, I have what I happily think of as a friendship birthday.

For the first time, I have something new to look forward to around Christmas.

The sadness didn’t disappear.

The people we lost didn’t come back.

One thing did not replace the other.

Life simply added something.

I think that’s important.

We sometimes imagine healing means erasing something painful and replacing it with something happy.

I don’t think life works that way.

At least mine hasn’t.

The heart seems capable of carrying both.

You can miss someone while being grateful for someone new in your life.

You can remember an ending while celebrating a beginning.

You can have tears attached to December and still find yourself looking forward to December.

Christmas keeps changing.

After 2019, I Learned Something About Gifts

In 2019, I had a stroke.

Experiences like that can rearrange your definition of an ordinary day.

Today, when I can get up and walk by myself, that’s a gift.

When I can perform the simple tasks most of us never think twice about, that’s a gift.

I can go into the bathroom and brush my own teeth.

Let’s keep the bathroom examples there.

But seriously, think about it.

How many things did you do today without thinking about them?

You stood up.

You walked.

You held something.

You looked at somebody you love.

You spoke.

You laughed.

Maybe you hugged somebody.

Maybe you called somebody.

Maybe you told somebody you loved them.

I learned that being alive is a gift.

For me, it is a gift from God.

And being able to love is a gift too.

Physical love.

Romantic love.

Family love.

Platonic love.

Love from the heart.

All of it.

For readers who find peace through quiet reflection, I’ve written before about spiritual meditation and making space for stillness.

My 25-Year-Old Self Would Think I Was Crazy

If you had found 25-year-old Francisco and told him that one day, when he was approaching 58, platonic love could be incredibly fulfilling, he probably would have looked at you like you had lost your mind.

Yet here we are.

Age has taught me that there are ways to love that I didn’t understand when I was younger.

You can love without possessing.

You can love without holding.

You can even love from a distance.

That doesn’t make the love less real.

Sometimes loving someone means wanting something from them.

But sometimes loving someone means simply wanting something for them.

Peace.

Happiness.

Safety.

Success.

Healing.

A little less weight on their shoulders.

And discovering that kind of love has been another gift of getting older.

Maybe my 25-year-old self wouldn’t understand it.

That’s okay.

He had some growing up to do.

Apparently, I still do.

That kind of connection is also why mindful communication and being genuinely present with another person matters so much to me.

Christmas Escaped December 25

Somewhere along the way, Christmas stopped being only a holiday for me.

It became a way of celebrating people.

A coworker tells you that his or her birthday is coming.

You don’t need to buy a massive gift.

Maybe it’s something little.

Maybe it costs almost nothing.

But you remembered.

You saw something and thought about that person.

Technically, it’s a birthday present.

But to me, something about that moment feels like Christmas.

It’s the feeling behind the giving.

And gifts don’t always come in boxes.

Sometimes Christmas happens in a hot warehouse in Texas.

Someone is carrying something heavy.

Your gift might be getting out of the way.

Someone is pushing a heavy load.

Your gift might be putting your hands against it and helping push.

And sometimes the load isn’t something sitting on a pallet.

Sometimes people are carrying things we can’t see.

Grief.

Fear.

Financial problems.

Loneliness.

Family problems.

A bad day.

A broken heart.

Sometimes we know.

Most of the time, we probably don’t.

Which brings me to a question I’ve increasingly tried to carry with me:

What can I do today to make this person’s life a little easier or a little better?

It doesn’t have to be dramatic.

You don’t have to save somebody.

You don’t have to fix their life.

Sometimes you just help push.

Sometimes you step aside.

Sometimes you remember the birthday.

Sometimes you listen.

Sometimes you give somebody a little gift for absolutely no reason.

Sometimes simply being fully present is enough. I’ve explored that idea in these simple grounding exercises too—the small act of returning to the person and moment right in front of us.

Maybe that’s also why the Santa I’ve been imagining lately looks a little different in my head.

He’s still Santa.

He can still be ridiculous.

He might even be wandering around Texas wearing a little button that says:

“I Love Jesus.”

Kkk.

But underneath the jokes, that’s how I see the spirit of Santa.

Give something.

Help somebody.

Notice somebody.

Make the load a little lighter.

Maybe that is how Christmas escaped December 25 for me.

Christmas became something I could practice.

And if that’s true, then maybe every day can be Christmas.

And Somehow, My Christmases Became Music

People have always found ways to do something with the things they feel.

Some people write.

Some paint.

Some pray.

Some take photographs.

Some cook.

Some garden.

Some volunteer.

Some create albums filled with old family pictures.

Some tell stories.

Some make music.

There is no single correct way to express love, gratitude, grief or memory.

For me, creativity itself can become a way of being present. That’s something I’ve explored more deeply in mindful creativity and finding your inner artist through presence.

In my case, some of those feelings eventually became songs.

That’s how a project that started with me saying I was going to beat Mariah Carey became something much more personal.

It became Christmas with Z.

One of those songs is called “Not Alone on Christmas Eve.” (Track #4)

You can probably understand now why a title like that means something different to me than it did when this adventure began.

And I also want to be transparent about how I create.

I use artificial intelligence.

ChatGPT has been one of the tools helping me organize thoughts, explore ideas, develop music concepts, create images and find ways to turn feelings into something I can share.

Other AI tools have been part of the creative process too.

I don’t see a reason to hide that.

But I also think there is an important distinction.

The technology didn’t live these memories. I did.

AI didn’t experience my divorce.

It didn’t lose my mother.

It didn’t lose my father.

It didn’t raise my children.

It didn’t have my stroke.

It didn’t celebrate my Christmases.

It didn’t discover, decades later, why Mom looked a little different after those Christmas glasses of wine.

And it definitely didn’t watch the cat attack the Christmas decorations.

Those experiences belong to me.

Technology simply became another instrument I could use to express them.

A paintbrush doesn’t experience the painting.

A piano doesn’t experience the song.

The story still has to come from somewhere.

These stories came from my life.

If any part of them found its way into Christmas with Z, then I’m grateful I found another way to express them.

If you’d like to hear where some of these memories and emotions eventually went, you can listen to Christmas with Z here.

You can also join Relax with Z on YouTube for the music, videos and quiet moments we continue creating throughout the year.

That’s all the sales pitch you’re getting.

I promise.

So, Am I Still Going to Beat Mariah Carey?

Of course I am.

I haven’t become that enlightened.

But somewhere along the way, I realized that beating Mariah Carey was never really the point.

Maybe the ridiculous idea simply got me through the door.

Because once I started thinking seriously about Christmas, I started thinking about the Christmases I’ve already had.

Christmas as a little boy in Brazil.

Christmas with Mom slightly tipsy.

Christmas as a husband.

Christmas as a father.

Christmas after divorce.

Christmas without Mom.

Christmas without Dad.

Christmas as a grandfather trying to defeat Amazon’s packaging intelligence.

Christmas with old friendships.

Christmas with new friendships.

Christmas with memories that hurt.

Christmas with things I suddenly have to look forward to again.

And then I realized something else.

God willing, I’m not finished.

There may still be many Christmases ahead of me.

There may be people sitting around future Christmas tables whom I haven’t even met yet.

There may be friendships that haven’t started.

There may be grandchildren’s stories that haven’t happened.

There may be songs I haven’t written.

There may even be another cat waiting somewhere to destroy another Christmas tree.

I hope so.

But I also don’t have to wait until December to experience the part of Christmas that matters most to me now.

Tomorrow morning, I can look at another human being and ask:

What can I do today to make this person’s life a little easier or a little better?

Maybe I’ll give something.

Maybe I’ll help push something heavy.

Maybe I’ll get out of the way.

Maybe I’ll remember.

Maybe I’ll listen.

Maybe I’ll pray.

Maybe I’ll simply love someone without needing to possess them, hold them or receive anything in return.

And on the days when life feels particularly heavy, sometimes a few quiet minutes can help. That’s part of why I’ve continued sharing practices such as meditation for the mind, body and rest.

Because after all these Christmases, and after everything life has given me and taken away, I think I finally understand something that my younger self probably couldn’t.

Being here is already a gift.

Being able to love is a gift.

Being able to give is a gift.

And maybe Christmas was never supposed to fit inside one day anyway.

Maybe every day can be Christmas.