Anymore,
the Christmas or Holiday season can be one of the most stressful times of the
year. Halloween candy is still on the shelves when the Christmas decorations go
up. The race begins on Black Friday (or earlier) to get the best gifts, the
most gifts at the lowest price.
There are lights to be strung, songs to be sung, and decorations to be
hung. These days I see a holiday that has become over-commercialized.
The
world I grew up in is so different from the world I now live in. People come
from many diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. Not everyone celebrates the holiday, and if they do they
bring different rituals and customs to it. So I don’t make assumptions and I don’t automatically wish
everyone I encounter, “Merry Christmas!” But I may inquire how they will spend
the holiday season. One of our biggest strengths comes from our ability to
learn from people who are different than we are.
For
me as a child – gifts and Santa aside – one of the best things about Christmas
was going into Manhattan with my father for a day, seeing the tree in
Rockefeller Center and walking with him down Fifth Avenue and looking in the
store windows decorated with Christmas themes. This was a special place and it
was magical. Oh, and for Barbara and I that magic came alive this summer when
we entered Barnes and Nobel on Fifth Avenue to see The Big Book of HR displayed
as a “Top Pick in Business.” It was Christmas in August!
Even
cultures that celebrate Christmas, have different traditions. Some cultures
that I didn’t think of as celebrating Christmas, have traditions associated
with it. I was surprised when I
visited China in December 2008 to see Christmas decorations and hear Christmas
music playing. Religion aside, for me the month leading up to Christmas is
filled with wonder and light -- the excitement before the gloomy days and
nights of January and February. It's a reflective period, one of hope and
compassion. Whether you celebrate Christmas, another holiday, or no holiday at
all, do you take any meaning from this time leading up to a new calendar year?
Are those meanings reflected in any of your traditions?
“And
the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and
puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It
came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his
puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What
if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas,
perhaps, means a little bit more.” Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss)
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