Today...it hit me that I don't think any adults that I know are completely happy when Christmas rolls around. Everyone has lost someone that they remember more at this time of year than any other. Everyone has some unfavorable memory. Everyone has stress about what to get who and how much money they can afford to spend.
I always realized that it wasn't just me. But today it really got me thinking about the whole idea behind the holiday. I know why it exists. I was taught at a very young age about the meaning of Christmas. I was taught that it wasn't about Santa and presents but about something deeper. Something more. And although, I may not believe these stories that I was taught completely, I believe that the IDEA of Christmas is a good and noble one. I think that it should remain about what it was meant to be about in the first place. To me, it isn't about a manger, and an immaculate conception. It is about love. And it is about family. And it is about purity and goodness. You don't find these things everywhere. You don't find them on television. Where they show you how much Oprah spends on her five 50th birthday parties on which she spent over four million dollars. You don't find them in daily life, where there are homeless on every street corner, just hoping that one person will be kind enough to look them in the faces. To have a little compassion for those who aren't so fortunate.
The world itself is cruel and unkind. It is selfish and stubborn. But mostly, it is lonely. The lonliness is masked by holidays exploited. It is hidden by the need to spend, to have, to receive. These things are not real. They are tools. Tools that all of us use, to make our troubles seem smaller, our sorrows dissolve a little.
What if we all stopped, just for a moment, and gave a shit about people instead of being so self-involved, so greedy? So needy. What if we actualized that our troubles and hardships could be worse? Would that be so terrible?

Stuck-in-my-head Song of the Day: "Pictures of Jesus"- Ben Harper