We’re careening towards Christmas!
I adore this season in part because it’s one of those times when people behave in dramatically uncharacteristic ways. Stone-faced, no-nonsense types suddenly put bright lights on their rooftops! Guys that look like “Dog, the Bounty Hunter” can be seen contemplating assorted, delicate fragrances at Yankee Candle stores! Little old ladies in tattered coats with overdue utility bills put dollars into Salvation Army kettles!!
The holidays seem to brighten human behavior. We glow with unpredictability. Generosity blooms like brilliant red poinsettias. Those twin human traits called sympathy and empathy warm us like a crackling fire built of well-seasoned wood. Making a child smile becomes an obsession for some. Others undergo a reversion to childhood themselves, getting giddy at the sight of a snowflake.!
To be sure, there are dampers to the season. Anniversaries of sad events that fall close to Christmas can ratchet down our enthusiasm for festivities. Within some of our homes adorned so brightly, are folks dealing with loss, with a frightening diagnosis, with loneliness and uncertainty. It helps me a little bit at this time of year to have a brief inner dialogue with my departed mom and dad and my dear friends who are gone on. What I hear them say is, “We loved you. We don’t want your mourning for us to numb you to the brightness of this season.”!
So I put “Perry Como Sings Merry Christmas Music” on heavy rotation. Plug in my plastic, porch Santa and dust off the aluminum Christmas tree. William Wordsworth once said, “The child is father of the man.” Maybe we should listen to the parental advice of our 6-year-old selves when they tell us, “Be silly! It’s Christmas!”
