My Christmas Wish

I wish it were always the Christmas Season. Well without the frenzied shopping thing. And maybe without the stress of not enough food to feed the hungry, not enough homes for the homeless- or blankets for that matter.

I wish we could keep that spirit of Good Will Towards Men. Well, mostly good will. Not everyone has it. Some people decide to take babies away from their parents and parents away from their babies. Christmas destroyed ever after. Drunk drivers wipe out whole families, gunmen killing for sport, drugged out mothers and fathers (for lack of better names to call them) forgetting their kids in cars on snowy nights while they cook their meth. T’is the season.

Missing loved ones long gone- or newly departed- is always a little worse at Christmas. It’s a sadness we rarely feel on the 4^th of July.

What if we could ratchet it back a few notches?  What if we went back to homemade gifts- started in January? What if we gave some of those surplus dollars to people who could actually use some food?  What if we were able to shift the way society values life? Then the Christmas Season would be great right?

What if everyone just slowed down a little and read something once in a while- instead of watching crime shows on TV?  Instead of watching news, that isn’t news anymore- delivered by people that have forgotten the basics of journalism- what I learned in 7^th grade when I wasn’t even paying attention.

The Christmas season must have been nice at some point in time. Some people have tried to keep tradition alive. My niece throws a lovely Christmas Eve dinner party and decorates the house like the North Pole. It was peaceful and full of joy, as it should be. Of course, she was exhausted afterwards. And her co-host husband- a firefighter had been up for 30 hours after receiving 25 calls while on duty the day before. Merry Christmas to him and all of our first responders- it’s a bad time of year for them too.

My son and I celebrate the un-Christmas. He is a Buddhist and I am a Doubting Thomas – want to be Buddhist– but we like the day for rest and relaxation. We usually go to a movie, but this year he was sick and I was just getting over something so we didn’t do anything but eat a nice dinner. That was enough for us.

I’m always irritated by people who want to go back to simpler times- like in the 50’s when kids could ride their bikes down the street without being shot or kidnapped. Because there was bad then too. The McCarthy era, extreme racism, The Cold War, Korean Conflict. Women’s rights were just a dream. I remember my mom always got a migraine at Christmas.

I honestly do wish that Christmas could be about more than what it’s become. I would wish for Christmas all year round if it could be good for everyone. But for now- Christmas lasts long enough and sometimes a little too long.