Christmas Used To Be Easy.

Image © by Brian E. Faulkner

Oh, for the good ol’ days, when Christmas was less a debate and more a gift to be discovered and unwrapped on December 25th!  Growing up, we Catholic and Protestant kids had heard about the “reason for the season” in cold, crisp (but not always snowy) New England, but in truth we didn’t know much about it, despite the belief our religious traditions attempted to imbue in us.  We DID, however, know about and embrace the whole Santa-milk-cookies-stockings-presents thing, which our Jewish friends got into just as enthusiastically.

It’s not as easy to feel warm and peaceful about Christmas these days, despite the twinkling lights and soaring chorales, given (a) the event’s near manic commercial aggressiveness and (b) the hurt feelings that have arisen in recent years as people with other traditions (or an ideological ax to grind) work to substitute Christmas greetings with Holiday greetings or some other expression of seasonal sour grapes, and America complies so as not to offend -- without acknowledging or perhaps even realizing what “holiday” means in the first place: Holy Day.  And so the season of Great Joy finds itself sunk in controversy at the insistence of an increasingly vocal minority, with the Great Good of it all but lost in the murk of political correctness and orgy of consumption that kicks off just after Halloween, blasts through Thanksgiving practically without pause and finally screeches breathlessly to a halt at the Christmas Eve finish line.   

Compared to “how things used to be,” it can all be just plain disorienting to those of us who came up in a more sanely paced time.  But it’s only that way if you let all the hullabaloo and nay-saying creep into your heart.  I simply choose not to. 

So, have yourself a blessed and serene Christmas filled with peace, joy, love and hope.  Give from deep pleasure, wrap yourself in family, allow others their space and reflect the Light.  Remember that Christmas is not a season but a Flower that opens in your heart, a Promise that applies to men, women, children, babies, relatives, friends, acquaintances, business associates, poor relations, incessant skeptics, old humbugs, politicians, talking heads, advertising execs, kittens, puppies and anyone else who may choose to partake.
 
“And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Joyeux Noël!

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