We’re less than a week until Christmas and I’m already as excited as a child on Christmas Eve.
You might say I’m a little bit crazy about Christmas. I listen to Christmas music all throughout the year, put up decorations before most people carve pumpkins, and try to watch as many holiday specials as I can in the weeks leading up to the big day.
My friends even call me “Mr. Christmas.” There’s just something about this season that makes it special.
Actually, there is a lot about this season that makes it … the most wonderful time of the year. And it is the best time of year because we take the time to be with family and friends making memories and enjoying holiday traditions.
Growing up, I recall my grandmother decorating her home well before Thanksgiving. She loved the holidays. My mother inherited that love of Christmas as well, and we’ve continued many traditions first started by my grandmother, who died in 1996.
Despite the hustle and bustle of shopping malls and stores everywhere, Christmas is a time of the year for family, friends, and love. Too often we get caught up in the materialistic form of Christmas with all sorts of gifts that we forget about days, weeks and months later.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve noticed more and more friends and others wishing for Christmas to hurry past or wanting to skip it altogether. Whether the economy or some other story is to blame, I’m saddened by those who dislike this festive season. At a time when there are so many other things fighting for our attention, Christmas allows us all to slow down and appreciate things that matter most in life.
Throughout the year, we get so caught up in everything else that we fail to truly appreciate life and what matters most. Christmastime is a time for reflection, and anticipation of the good things to come in the new year.
We make a promise with ourselves to spend more time with family and friends, meet up with long-lost classmates or childhood pals, and to celebrate life more and work less. And before you know it, Christmas is here again and we’re back to where we started, making the same promises.
No, Christmas isn’t about the iPad I so desperately want Santa to bring. Having more money, more gifts or big dinners won’t make Christmas extra special. My family and friends make this Christmas special by experiencing life with me. And that’s a gift you can’t unwrap.
When I think about my true meaning of Christmas, I look to a very simple, yet well known story, by Dr. Seuss. We all can learn an awful lot about Christmas from the Grinch.
After he ransacked Who homes, carting off everything from ornaments to pudding and even the roast beast, he stood atop the mountain listening as the Whos carried on with their celebration without presents, decorations or food.
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"
The number of gifts, food and decorations do not matter. What matters is quality time spent making memories with friends and family. The holiday season isn't about perfection or the latest gadget, it's about cherishing precious moments spent with the ones you love. And that message is even more important this season than ever before.
Have a very merry Christmas.
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Want to wish Bobby a very merry Christmas? Tweet him @gobobbo.
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twoday magazine wants to know: What makes this time of year special for you? What are your holiday traditions? Facebook us!
erikdolnack
Bah, humbug!
Somehow, our society today turned upside down over the decades. In the past it was the fat-cat businessmen that were the Scrooge’s, hating “idle” people making merry instead of being industrious. It was the Cratchit family of modest means that were the ones that championed the Christian religion and all the charity and brotherly goodwill that went with their beliefs. That was then.
Today, the Scrooges of the world are just as callous, selfish, cold-hearted and greedy (perhaps even more so), but today’s Scrooges champion the Christmas holiday (and the Christian religion itself) as their own. These money-lenders deride liberals and other Leftist groups that espouse democracy and economic justice as “un-American”, “atheist”, and “un-patriotic”. You have powerful CEOs living like feudal nobles, such as Dan Blankenship of Massey energy, sporting red-white-&-blue garb and donating money to the “Tea Party” protests, while his corporation evades taxation, pollutes the environment, and is responsible for deregulation policies which cost the lives of 25 miners last year. If that’s American Christian patriotism, then call me Karl Marx! What kind of Christmas will the poor workers of the Massey Energy mines celebrate this holiday? Probably about as slim & meager as that of Bob Cratchit’s family. Ho ho ho!
Let’s face it, as adults, Christmas isn’t at all about love, charity, hope, goodwill towards men and peace on earth. For most Americans, Christmas means creating the perfect little Currier & Ives picture-postcard holiday (as seen in Martha Stewart magazines) of wholesome WASP affluent families FOR THEMSELVES alone and to hell with the rest of the world!
If you can cut someone off in traffic, beat that other shopper to the last iPad left on the shelf, shove the other parents out of your way as you make your way to the checkout lane, then you deserve a merrier holiday. May the best (and most competitive) holiday-maker win!
Christmas doesn’t automatically come once a year. Christmas is MADE every year, by all of us. It’s just something that we’ve all subscribed to from birth, as a society, and damn the individual that dares stand up to this over-consumption ever 12 months! The market will not tolerate such dissent. There’s money to be made and retailers count on December sales to carry them the rest of the year. How else can Sam Walton’s kids own the whole world if we don’t all buy crap we don’t need on credit to placate our neglected children? Ho ho ho!
“If you’re poor, Santa doesn’t care if you hang yourself with your empty stocking.” - Andrew Dolnack