That’s life: Remembering that the holidays are really holy days

Once Thanksgiving arrives, the days cascade over the edge of the cliff, forming a waterfall of activity.

At the very point in time, the second, you push away from the feast that celebrates all there is to be thankful for, the rush begins. And so it goes until Dec. 27. Then, the giving, receiving and returning are virtually over and the collective sigh that is pure relief begins to form the calm, trickling pool at the bottom of the cliff.

Today is the last day to slip out to a store to capture whatever is left on the shelves that you might need as that last minute gift. Good luck with that.

Today is a better time to slip aside quietly somewhere and remember that these holidays exist for more than giving and getting and receiving and returning … they are for reflecting on miracles and wonders.

Particularly the year-end holidays are for remembering that, in the beginning, holidays were holy days, set apart for reminding us that there are things greater than ourselves. 
There are those things more wondrous than we can imagine.

There is hope. There is peace. Joy. Love. Friendship. Respect. It is what these holy days are meant to help us rekindle.

Looking back to former owner and editor Lem Winesett’s words on his editorial page in the Marion Star in December 1984, a mere 24 years ago, he wrote “Most of us long for an ‘old-time’ Christmas.

What do we mean by that?” Winesett said, “If we go back a few decades, many families were hard pressed to earn enough to pay the rent and buy enough food and clothes to keep going. We didn’t have as many automobiles, we didn’t have as many work-saving appliances and gadgets. We were often in war … we didn’t have variety …”

But that’s the Christmas, the holidays, remembered fondly enough to make us long to return to them. Perhaps, the elusive, happier ‘old-time’ Christmas was more fulfilling, but why? Perhaps, because it was a simpler time, when not as much was expected, so people were happier and more content.

Today’s economic woes may place some undue stress on us all this holiday season.

In this time of, as Winesett said, “super abundance of amusements, automobiles, televisions,” and, I add, just plain stuff. We spend more time on frivolous things and less time on the things that matter.
That’s life. We get caught up. We get competitive. We begin the “stuff wars,” searching for more and more and … we exhaust ourselves for no good reason.

Perhaps this year we can all seek to find that simpler, calmer, holy day offered to each of us.