fpdorchak

Merry Christmas to one and all!

And to those who celebrate any other holiday within this timeframe, I wish you all the very best and all the same well wishes!

But…what does Christmas mean to me?

A Red Ryder-carbine-action-two-hundred-shot-range-model-air-rifle-with-a-compass-in-its-stock-and-a-thing-which-tells-time.

I have no issue with the religious celebrating Christmas as they do…I just do not share your religion.

But.

I still enjoy the season just the same!

I’m not of the traditional religion. Nor non-traditional. I’m just not…”religious.” To me Christmas means peace. And joy. Among other things, it also means being with family. Enjoying their company, and their company enjoying your company. It’s the spirit (yes, “spirit“) of giving—and receiving. It’s reliving Christmases of old…experiencing Christmases of new. It’s enjoying many people enjoying (or trying to!) the season, and therefore life itself. Its people enjoying their own versions of Christmas, both religious and not. It’s one huge time of year where most people try to make a concerted effort to be a little…nicer.

Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas, upon which the entire kid year revolved.

Okay, tackling you to get at the last Xbox 360 with Kinect or Kindle, or cutting you off for that parking spot as they spill their piping hot Starbucks into their laps, notwithstanding.

And I’ll take one day a year over zero any time (but I know the number’s quite higher)…with the optimistic hope that such behavior will carry over a bit more into their daily lives. I enjoy the spirit of everyone trying to be a better Human and hope that people will stop killing each other and politicians will start acting like the adults they’re rumored to be.

But, that’s not all.

It means watching my favorite Christmas movies! Eating my favorite Christmas food! Writing Christmas cards and letters! Christmas trees and all the trimmings! Colorful lights! Festive music! Admittedly, I look forward to seeing what others give to me (and, heck, yeah, it’s fun)—and look forward to how they feel about what I give them (this is just as much fun)! It’s the metaphysical “feel” of the season I try to experience in my own, personal, metaphysical way. I love the snow and hope for the proverbial “White Christmas” (as a kid, that’s what we had every year, no exceptions—upstate New York).

So, maybe I did a good enough job explaining what Christmas is to me, maybe I didn’t. But it’s my version, and allows for other versions to coexist. Christmas may have started for one reason (religious) or another (secular), but as is the case with other things in life, it has taken on more in its journey through the ages. It means many things to many people, but it all seems to join at various versions of family, peace, love, and understanding. Let’s all try to be so accommodating.

And a Red Ryder-carbine-action-two-hundred-shot-range-model-air-rifle-with-a-compass-in-its-stock-and-a-thing-which-tells-time.

Perhaps not.  But I love that movie–A Christmas Story. It’s one of my favorites, as well as It’s a Wonderful Life. So, go on, rent them. Watch them.

Just don’t shoot your eye out in the process.