Christmas Thoughts

“Sleigh bells ring, are you list’nin? In the lane, snow is glist’nin! A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland…”




In the danger of being Captain Obvious…It’s Almost Christmas!!! Of course you knew that already, but sometimes it’s even better saying it out loud. Everything in these few days just seems to lead straight up to this magical day. The snow, the shopping, the gift-wrapping, the decorations… it all fills the heart with a wonderful feeling.

This season holds so many memories for almost everyone. It’s a time when people get together to share stories, presents, ideas, and memories. It’s a time when the world tries to quiet its hectic, frantic spinning and think of peace, goodness, generosity, giving, and open hearts. With all this, who wouldn’t support Christmas and all it is?

It’s a pity that Christmas isn’t every day of the year. Of course, this would cease to make it different, but the ideals it upholds should be kept year-round. Who knows? It might even do us some good—they stopped fighting for a day in WWI on Christmas. Maybe if we had Christmas for an entire year we’d reconsider what we’re really doing to ourselves and each other. They had Christmas songs, entertained each other…if you think about it, the people you’re fighting probably aren’t bad guys themselves, and are the people you’d like to sit down and have a cup of coffee (or tea, or whatever) with and enjoy a morning with. You’re just two people on different sides, is all…

Christmas is simply full of good times, though. It seems as though the entire world (although that’s not quite true) is caught up in the same mindset, of being good, of caring, of family, and friends too, and a glow of happiness. The things it brings…all through the years of my short life, there is something that stays the same. Our fat old Christmas tree, for instance, which seems doomed to being lost to a new, skinnier, “prettier” tree that can’t hold half the ornaments or memories that our big one we’ve had forever can. The ornaments themselves, all gathered through years of collecting from many places—Crater Lake, Mount Vernon, my dance school, my brother’s college, and more. They’re precious, and each has a little story behind it. Then there’s the cookie baking, ripping open presents, enjoying ourselves, being stupid. I mean, what’s Christmas without a little stupidity between family?

I think it’s true that we really forget these things when it gets to sometime in March. It lingers in our memory for a month or a few, and then it disappears as other things overtake it. But then it grows in our minds again in November. Let’s relax and see how long this Christmas can last. In spirit, perhaps all through the year. Have as much fun as you can, and will, because it’s a blessing every year. And at the end, a new year dawns, just like the blank page full of possibility.