Holiday Shopping

Lately, we’ve been reminded that this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there are the fewest shopping days possible. Normally, Thanksgiving is earlier, and so we have more time... as if time to shop was the primary purpose of the season.

Television and newspapers report the current guess as to whether “holiday shopping will save the fourth quarter,” on which businesses have come to rely for a “successful” year. And the traffic reporters tell us about available parking space at area malls. Even technological cognoscenti are telling us that “this is the year for internet retailers.”

To all that, I say, “Bah! Humbug,” but my judgment may not be quite what you think.

This is the time of year to shed the carapace of cynicism, ennui, even despair, and take time to return to the basics of what you believe…or believed, once upon a time.

No matter how many times you have heard the story, whatever story you celebrate, pretend as though you have never heard it before, let it roll into your being and stir the damped fire which sits somewhere deep inside you. Sing the songs, chant the chants, dance the dances as though you have just discovered them – that will be a great gift to the generations waiting and watching you as they learn about your traditions and how to carry them forward into their own time.

Each year when I take out the decorations, some of which go back several generations in my family, I feel graced by the care and affection of those before me who also tended the holiday we celebrate.

And that is the most important gift we can give – the gift of love. It smoothes anxiety, diminishes fear, and quiets the wobblies we feel in these troubled times. Love needs no warranty, is always the right color, size, and style, and – if well tended - lasts, in all its forms, for generations and generations.

May you and yours enjoy and care for your holidays - to the hilt!


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P.S. On December 24th at 3:00 pm in England and 10:00 am in New York, affiliated stations of Public Radio International will offer the 24th American broadcast of “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” live from the chapel of King’s College at Cambridge University in Cambridge, England. The choir of King’s College will sing carols and representatives of the community of Cambridge will read lessons from the Old and New Testaments. The service is also broadcast live by BBC Radio in the UK and the BBC World Service both in the UK and around the world on shortwave.