The Holiday Intermission

So it's the day after Christmas and maybe it's some kind of self-torture but I always stay up till midnight on Christmas day to hear the last Christmas song played on the Radio.  This year it was Josh Groban's O Holy Night.

Not my favorite version but it closed out the Christmas part of the Holiday Season.  It was followed up with the usual parade of commercials and a station identification that drove the point home that as far as that radio station was concerned the Holidays were OVER!

It starts on Christmas Eve with me.  I feel like there's a huge hourglass somewhere with the last few grains of sand flowing through that tiny choke point and taking the joy of the season with it.

I'm aware that perception is everything and my analogy is my own.  Perhaps it's just that I love the Christmas season but there's something comforting in knowing that at this time of year the feeling is always present. It may get shuffled to the background but it colors my mood regardless.  It brings a hope and an optimism that may be difficult to conjure up at any other time.

So the Christmas music is over and we sit in that intermission between Christmas and New Years.  It's a fairly useless week.  Good luck getting anyone to do anything if they're even around.  It's dead time to fill.  For some a reprieve from the pressures of family responsibilities around the holiday.  For others a time of reflection especially as the old year closes.

It's a time that forces you to deal with yourself.  Maybe you've got a busy social calendar, maybe you have to work, maybe you're on your own.  It doesn't matter.  There are always those down times where you're forced to look around you and see what is and more importantly what isn't there.

The holiday decorations that a week earlier brought joy to your heart now look a bit tacky and faded.  The pressures of the ordinary reassert themselves without hindrance from that Christmas carol ringing in your head.

Christmastime is a powerful force and its passing can make us forget that we somehow managed to survive the other 11 months of the year without the encouragement of Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.

If Christmas is that important, the feeling, the meaning of it so dear then we should recover from the "Christmas High" fairly quickly.  Reason being because Christmas is really just a magnification of our own better selves.  That heart is always present.  It's just easier to show when the trees go up and the reindeer antlers go on the dog.

At least that's how I look at it.  I don't claim to know your mind or your motivations.  I only offer up the possibility that if the holiday season means that much to you that you carry that spirit with you no matter what time of year.

Connect with that and don't be surprised if your perception is altered.

Happy New Year!

The Holiday Heart

 

So it's the holiday season again.  You know the one with Santa Claus, Baby Jesus, Menorahs and a month of sales of the "Black" or "Cyber"  variety.

Such humble origins as a celebration of  the Winter Solstice to ward off the doldrums of the most dreary of seasons gave way to the very pinnacle of rampant consumerism and oh yeah, religion got thrown in there along the way.

History tells us that the Catholic Church specifically set the date for the first Christmas celebrations to coincide with the otherwise pagan celebration occurring on December 25th.  

Of course the Catholic Church denies it...😇

...and Bill Clinton did not have.....never mind...

It's a good sales technique: Make the pitch while people are drunk on the spirit, or "spirits," mix in some familiar pagan ritual and symbolism they can relate to and suddenly the pews are filled with the faithful.

Nothing wrong with that...

It's a classic sales tactic.  That's what Christmas has been from the very beginning.  At least so far as the Christmas we know.  Save the assertions of blasphemy.  Theologists, historians and astronomers alike have pretty much agreed that the divine birth likely occurred around late September.

So I suppose all those holiday decorations showing up in October aren't too early after all.   In fact they're a bit late!

Why bring all this up now?

Because it's about faith.  It's about believing in something greater than what's staring back at you in the mirror.  That's the lesson regardless of your choice in divine text.  

Without faith there is no peace.  Faith in God, faith in our better angels, faith in each other to do what is right and good.

Couch it n religion if you must but only so far as it serves the greater purpose.  That being making this life, this world better for us having been here.  What we do and who we are right now is the core of all spiritual belief.  Whether we believe in divine reward at the end of this life or that this life is reward in itself we are encouraged to bring light into the world.  

Each day is an opportunity to create something beautiful and this time of year makes it all the more possible.

That's what I feel.  It's something that stays with me.  It lets me appreciate the Holiday Heart as I call it.

It's a feeling of unity, hope and yes "faith."   I make no claim as to what or if there is any divine inspiration for it.  Faith has more to do with who we are than who we may or may not pray to.  Whether we find it though rampant consumerism or religious conviction there's still a need that's satisfied.  A desire to bring and receive joy.

Be open to it. 

Tap into it.

Share it.  

It's an energy of positivity.  An elevation to a higher state above the petty concerns of all those things that ultimately have no value.

Value lies in the good we can put into the world.  It lies in being that which we hope to find.  

As you take in the sights and sounds of the season take a moment to feel the Holiday Heart.  See the light beyond the dazzling light displays.  Feel the music beyond the sacred hymns.  

Allow the energy to flow and the love to grow within you. 

That's the Holiday Heart.

Merry Christmas!
Happy Hanukah!

...and joy to whatever may move you this special time of year!  (regardless of who came up with the date  🎄🎄🎄 )

After Christmas - A post mortem for the soul

Twas the week after Christmas lights still on the tree sadly now shining less brightly 

At once made perfect with all due care now those lights a nuisance, a tacky cross to bear

The excitement of the season fades to past as the day of reckoning for bills made comes fast

How quickly we forget why the season is so bright or perhaps we never really knew as we bought all in sight

The 26th comes, the world again severe.  Good will toward men and kindness in arrears

The baubles now tattered, broken and dark as the joy of the season fades to gray and stark

Now approaches the shiny new year with expectations rising and reality drawing near

Soon we'll return, marching to another's tune all the time hoping our turn will come soon

Ahh but that reality, the ogre that looms.  A plague on the heart, dogged foe of joy fast friend of doom

Life is what you make it or so they say but those who proclaim it rarely enter the fray

So as your impending hangover this New Year's Morn you dread

Let me pound this one simple message into your soon throbbing head

The lesson of the season isn't about lights on a tree

It's about the light kept inside year round shared freely

Priorities be damned, you've got them wrong anyway

Give of yourself shining with the light of Christmas each and every day