If ever there was a time of the year when people can let go and reach out, it must be this time of year. You might celebrate Christmas per se, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or another holiday, or just the snow or the sunshine or whatever you see outside your window.
In Charles Dickens’ classic story A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s nephew Fred says that he has always thought of Christmas time as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time when people seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
I think it’s interesting, too, that Fred doesn’t just speak of Christmas as a day, but rather of “Christmas time,” a season. When I was young, Christmas Day was just the beginning of a number of days when we would visit relatives and enjoy some goodies at each house. I, for one, don’t take my decorations down on December 26.
These are my wishes for all of you—a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant, long running holiday season.
See you next year.