It’s Christmas—Let’s Talk About Love

Let’s put aside the hateful political rhetoric that has dominated the news for months. Let’s stop speculating about the fearsome cabinet picks of the new president-elect—especially those who have a hate-based reputation.  And let’s stop giving air space to the “fake news” that is currently poking it’s head out of the underground passages of the internet.

After all, it’s the season of peace and goodwill—the season of love. And ultimately, everything we do in preparing for Christmas is for someone we love:

• We buy gifts, choosing carefully so that the recipients will be pleased, and hopefully surprised.
• We prepare meals, always made more meaningful by the attendance of people we love.
• We clean and decorate our homes, creating an atmosphere of joy and celebration for the guests we love.
• We send out greetings to those who are in other parts of the country, spreading our message that we love them and have not forgotten them.
• We start our preparations early in December, holding thoughts of loved ones close, reaching out to them, sending them love.

Expressing generosity and joy

There is a natural welling up of generosity at Christmas—we are moved by the music, the bustle, the human connections, to do things for others. It’s important to find ways you can be in step with these feelings. Here are some suggestions from Jillee Nystul in “One Good Thing”

“Instead of talking about me and my family’s Random Acts of Kindness this year, I thought I’d give you all some ideas and inspiration to start doing your own! I promise, if you take the time to do even ONE of the things on the list below, your Christmas will be made that much merrier!”

If you have children or grandchildren, Courtney Patterson has some ideas about how  to involve them in this spirit of generosity:

“Finding ways to practice kindness doesn’t have to be a major production. Kindness comes in many different shapes, sizes and forms. Here are some ideas to help your children, at any age, understand the true spirit of Christmas so they can apply it in their own lives.”

Ultimately, you owe it to yourself to be happy on Christmas. Here is how you can do this, according to the deep wisdom of Sadhguru in “Inner Engineering”

“The first and most fundamental responsibility for a human being is to become a joyous being. To be happy is not the ultimate aspect of life. It is the fundamental aspect of life. If you are not happy, what else can you do with your life? Only if you are happy, can other great possibilities open up.”

Accepting the sadness of loss

Some of us, who are older, remember Christmases that were different—filled with people who are gone and no longer part of our lives. So there is sadness for some of us, during this season. But that too, is about love:

Frederick Beuchner, in “A Room to Remember,” says this,

“But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.”

Nothing expresses this more poignantly than Canada’s own Josh Groban, singing the beautiful song, “What I did for love.” Give it a few seconds of your time. You won’t be disappointed:

And Merry Christmas, everybody. Smile, and enjoy these last few days of preparations!