Salutations everyone!
First, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
When I was a kid, I used to dislike Christmas. It wasn’t because of not getting the presents I wanted each year, though to be perfectly honest there wasn’t a whole lot I wanted. Nor was it because of the dreaded after time when I would have to go back to school and endure listening to the other kids brag about where in the Bahamas they went swimming, or how they learned to ski in the Swiss Alps.
I disliked the holidays because it all felt so annoyingly commercialized and how it all felt like a competition of who loved who more – the more gifts someone received, the more they were loved. It didn’t exactly help that sentiment when my grandmother gave my other cousins these wonderful and elaborate gifts, while I received a $5 gift card to Walmart.
What makes it so frustrating is we have several movies and stories that show how rude and corrupt the commercialization is, and how we should be believing in Peace to all and Good Will to Men. And yet, those very sentiments are buried in the constant push to buy buy buy, profit profit profit, and consume consume consume by these toy-making companies. Toys that more often than not break down and crumple within a month, two tops.
For the record, I don’t harbor any feelings of resentment or jealousy toward my cousins. Never have. I knew from a very early age that my grandmother didn’t like me – and if I’m going to be honest, I never really liked her either. Kind of hard to like someone when they call you a devil’s spawn to your face.
But in the past few years, I’ve grown to enjoy the winter festivities. I like listening to the snow fall, gently covering the ground in a fluffy warm blanket of white. I like how the following morning light filters through the dusted trees, how it uses the newly formed icicles to send colors upon colors throughout the quiet woods. I like watching kids play with the snow, excited how it’s the perfect kind of snow to make snowmen. I also love how you get to snuggle up with a cat, a blanket, and a good book, listening to the fire in the wood stove crackles and snaps.
Call it a Charlie Brown moment if you will, but Christmas, Yule, and all other holidays celebrated in this timeframe, it’s all about being with the family, holding each other close, keeping up to date with each other and praying for love, abundance, and protection over one another.
It’s about celebrating each other. Celebrating what we’ve all gone through, knowing that part of our lives is over, and getting ready to welcome in the possibilities that come with the new year.
That’s what I’ve come to celebrate for this time of year.
I wish you all a wonderful Winter Wonderland, a Very Merry Christmas, a Blessed Yule, and a Happy New Year! See you all in 2025!!
L.J. LaBree 