Merry Christmas

Yet another Christmas is upon us but unlike past years, I will not bore you with our normal greetings or lists of what we have done this past year. Instead, I wanted to turn to the subject of the Christmas Spirit.

However you define it, the Christmas Spirit is something that is almost totally lacking in our society today. It might be the spirit you feel in church, with your family or simply the warmth in your heart. Whatever it is to you personally, it has changed and evacuated for the most part from our Christmas experience.

In our house, we celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve because that’s how it was done in the Tirol. Santa would ring a bell at midnight so that anxious children would know it was time to leave the bed and join the family in front of the tree. I remember those Christmas Eves from the past when my whole family was together. It wasn’t about fancy gifts; most of our gifts were hand-made crafts of one sort or another. Even into my adult years, I would bring my father a gag gift with many empty boxes inside each other, usually with a Provalone cheese in the most inner box. These were simple times but the true spirit of the Christmas season seemed always to have prevailed. It was about being with loved ones and sharing a special time with them. It was about recognizing a special time of year reserved for reflection, pride and love.

By contrast, Christmas today is marked by panic buying of loads of Chinese crap that no one really needs nor wants. It’s all about money from every angle. Who is greedier: The merchants or the public? People feel forced to put up an artificial tree. It is done out of laziness and without spirit but is excused as being environmentally correct. Worst of all, the Christmas Spirit has been largely lost in a vacuum of commercialism combined with a loss of soul.

Often family members are scattered across the globe and there exists little will to bring the family together for the holidays. Johnny just got a huge promotion in New York and can’t make it.  Jane would like to come but the four children would be too much of a hassle. Let’s just go out to a restaurant and have some turkey with strangers.

Distinctly I remember my favorite Christmas. Christmas Eve was spent with my parents and my siblings as we enjoyed our traditional evening together. It was a quiet evening of love and good food prepared with love. Gifts consisted of home-made beef jerky, smoked salmon and the now familiar Provalone. The next morning, Christmas Day, I got back up well before dawn and walked alone in the Oregon woods. I climbed to the top of a small hill and sat, surrounded by whispering pines in a light breeze, reflecting on all that was good in the world as dawn spread its first rays.

To all of you, my dear readers, I wish you a Merry Christmas. Please remember what is merry in your life and keep the Christmas Spirit alive and well within your hearts.

Photo: Christmas in 1960. I am presenting a handmade gift to my mother.

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