We are all familiar with what is called the Christmas Spirit – good cheer, well wishes, excited children, bells ringing, beautiful decorations, special store sales, sleigh rides, skiing, sledding, ice skating, appearances by Santa, greeting cards, storefront decorations, and spoken wishes for a Merry Christmas – Happy Christmas – Holiday Wishes – Happy New Year and all of that.
We also know that such tidings are not quite so jovial this year. We won’t be going to the usual Christmas lunches and Christmas parties and to the movies and all the other things we usually do for Christmas. There will be no office get-togethers, and in some cases not even any family get-togethers. No smell of pies and turkeys and hams cooking as we wait for a house full of company. People aren’t quite as full of happiness and well wishes as they should be. Stores are only about half as busy as normal, and receiving gifts by mail/UPS isn’t as exciting as getting wrapped presents from under a tree. The fun of shopping with others is gone. The fun of coming home with a car full of presents is gone. Now we sit and wait for UPS or Amazon trucks to pull up and leave plain cardboard boxes on our doorsteps.
I have found that the best way to “feel” Christmas is to reminisce. Remembering better Christmases – remembering when my children and grandchildren were little and the whole extended family would get together at my mother’s or my in-laws’ house and take food and baked goods and arms full of presents and just let bedlam take over.
Nostalgia of old days also helps – like Grandma Moses paintings from 1800’s or early 1900’s that show wonderful, warm depictions of Christmas at big old farm houses – kids sledding and ice skating – popcorn strings around the Christmas trees – mittens and wool hats and full-body snow suits like in “A Christmas Story,” wherein the child inside that suit can barely move his arms because he is so overly bundled. I also love looking at the scenes on Christmas cards, and at pictures from Christmases past.
s on Christmas cards, and at pictures from Christmases past.
It
also helps to listen to Christmas music – “real” Christmas
carols sung by choirs, not some of the modern-day hip-hop songs about
Santa being a bad boy or getting high at a Christmas party or
anything else that takes away from the true glory and meaning of
Christmas. Christmas hymns, and songs like “White Christmas”
always bring warmth to our hearts. My favorite is “I’ll Be Home
For Christmas.” That always makes me cry.
Even if we can’t have company, it still helps to decorate the home and a tree - to bake something, even it if’s just for yourself – to mail Christmas cards or send special Christmas greetings by e-mail. It helps to call friends and loved ones with Christmas blessings. And I mean CALL them, not text them. Texts are so cold and generic.
Counting our blessings is, in itself, a Christmas joy. Let’s be glad when we wake up in the morning feeling good – able to move and smile and drink fresh coffee and just “be.” We can walk around the house enjoying our decorations. We can still wrap gifts and get them ready to be delivered. We can still sign and mail Christmas cards. We can still watch it snow and sit and stare at the Christmas tree. We can still watch old movies like “A Christmas Carol,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” and “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
With this blog I send best wishes to friends, family and fans, with hopes you all have a wonderful Christmas, and prayers that 2021 will see an end to Covid, political division, closed schools, empty offices, theaters and restaurants, and an end to too many meetings via Zoom. Let’s pray that Christmas 2021 sees all of us back to parties, Christmas shopping in “real” stores, and family get-togethers. In the meantime, remember the real reason for celebrating Christmas. It isn’t all the decorating and partying and shopping. We are celebrating the birth of Christ, and Covid and the depressing changes it has brought us this season, cannot change the real message of Christmas. A Savior was born.
