Get in the spirit
On the way to Church Sunday morning, the first Advent Sunday, I had to make a stop at the mail box so my wife could put her annual bale of Christmas cards into the mail. They are sent far and wide from here.
I am sitting here now looking out the bunker’s only window. I have a terrific view of the porch rail that runs the length of the sidewalk out to the driveway. I am watching rain drip from the Christmas garland I put along that rail on Sunday afternoon when it was sunny. After two days of rain, it is starting to sag a little under the weight of the water. On the bright side, the lights have not shorted out and I do not live in Buffalo. Out in the yard in a place I cannot see from the bunker window is a nativity scene. It is homemade. My brother made it for me. It is cut from a pattern and locks together like a puzzle and each year I have to remember how the puzzle goes together.
Inside, I am allowed to put up the tree and make sure the lights work then I am exiled. I am not good at hanging ornaments. My wife does not understand that these things need to be organized by size and shape and spaced uniformly. After that little chat she tactfully tells me to take my Sergeant Major backside outside and uniformly hang the garland on the porch. I move out smartly.
I love Christmas. Back in the house, it appears my wife took ornaments by the handful and tossed them in the direction of the tree. And it is beautiful.
Last year my wife and I watched Last Ounce of Courage. The story is about a mayor of a small town a war hero himself who lost his only son in the war. He finally stands up against the people who want to remove Christmas from the public square. The story was about standing up for ones rights more than it was about Christmas. A decent story, but it was not a Christmas one. It put me in the mood to fight that war on Christmas we seem to hear about every year, but it did not do much to nudge me into the true Christmas spirit.
This year we watched the Kirk Cameron movie Saving Christmas. It was not about the “war” on Christmas or anything along that line. It was about Christmas. The symbolism explained as was the greatness of the event. I left the theater thinking how dreadful Christmas has become because some of us spend a lot of time angry with people who are at odds with what we believe. So much so that we allow them to choose our attitude for us and cause us to focus more attention on them than we do the reason for the season. Thanks to Mr. Cameron for pointing that out to me and for nudging me into the spirit. I do not intend to allow the negativity to steal the spirit from me this year.
Another thing I cannot figure out is black Friday. That appears to be the important day for many. If only we could muster that amount of enthusiasm toward Christmas day. Black Friday is about greed and self-indulgence. Is it not? What is civilized and good about people stampeding over one another in the middle of the night and then brawling over the last flat screen television.
Christmas is about letting your charitable side surface. It is about taking a turn ringing the bell at the Salvation Army Kettle. It is about when you feel like spending a couple of hundred dollars on a gizmo you probably do not need and instead buying a couple hundred dollars worth of food and donating it to one of your community’s Christmas food basket programs. Truth be known, most of us can afford to do both at least once each year. Or plucking a name from an Angel Tree and buying a coat and a toy for a child that might otherwise have neither. Have you ever made a Christmas jar? That’s when you commit to putting one dollar a day into a jar for the entire year beginning on Christmas Eve. Then when Christmas rolls around, you anonymously give the jar to a person in need or to a cause in need. I assure you it feels better than pulling your best WWF move at Wall Mart to get that last TV.
Merry Christmas. Find the spirit and let no one steer you away from it.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. – Jeremiah 29:13 NIV
© 2014 J. D. Pendry American Journal
Category: Politics
HEAR, HEAR!!
We should all pay heed to the message. No truer words have been written.
Thank you for this, and God bless you. Merry Christmas, sir.
Merry Christmas!
You know, that whole “Happy Holiays” crap bugs me to no end. I’m a Pagan, and my family celebrates Saturnalia, alongside many other Pagans here where I live.
Yet, my Christian friends are celebrating Christmas and I enjoy hearing their greetings, and returning them. Why should that be suppressed? Should I fear upsetting the PC Zampolits by saying Io! Saturnalia! to them, or just in public?
Shutting out the Christmas greeting is an affront to our liberties, and affects us all, because when one citizen’s rights are infringed, ALL citizen’s rights are infringed and it’s a damning trail that leads to losing our citizenship, and becoming subjects, or worse.
So I support celebrating Christmas, and Hanukkah, and Saturnalia and all the greetings and decorations and traditions that accompanies each one. To me, it’s a perfect example of the tolerance and diversity that the leftists demand. 🙂
So again, Merry Christmas to all of my Christian friends!
I’m Catholic, I celebrate Christmas. And if somebody tells me, “Happy Hannukah,” “Happy Kwanzaa,” or whatever, I respond, “Thanks! Same to you, and Merry Christmas!”
If they’re sincere, then we’re both happy and it’s all good. If they were trying to snark me, I beat them at their own game. And either way the PCnazis can suck it.
I don’t ever say, “happy holidays,” even at work in uniform (I fix a Christmas Wreath to the grill of my engine, pipe-cleaner reindeer antlers to the light bar, and garland to the pump panel). Whatever holiday you celebrate, wish people a sincere Merry/Happy ______. Somebody who gets offended that you don’t celebrate the same thing they do, or that you celebrate anything at all (I’ve had a run-in or two with militant atheists, who seem to feel compelled to be assholes to anybody who doesn’t share their depressing belief) doesn’t deserve your consideration.
Besides, Christmas is a national holiday.
I have run into a few of those militant atheists as well. You should hear the greeting they get from me.
I can joyfully celebrate an event without worshiping anything. I even celebrate your right to exclaim ‘Laudetur Iesus Christus’
Merry Christmans
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas. It is also a special time of the year for me. For me, it is about friends, family and charity. I am Atheist and I have and will continue to respect and defend your right to celebrate Christmas for what ever reason you choose.
Simply because we may celebrate the holiday for a few reasons that are different does not mean we are at war over it. I am often asked why I celebrate Christmas because I am Atheist. When I simply attempt to explain my beliefs, they are most often received as an attack on Christian beliefs. So, to this end, let me offer the best explanation I know of that represents Atheist views on this holiday, not as an attack on anyone, simply an explanation of our view. Once again, Merry Christmas.
Ah, Christmas!
For some reason, it was set on December 25 instead of the Winter Solstice, but who cares? It’s the shift from the old year to the new.
The whole house smells like summer because I have apple cider simmering on the stove top. It freshens the indoor air a lot. I can OD on Christmas music played by a local rock station, which they start in mid-November. It’s a good excuse to put your feet up and snooze, too – pop some popcorn, read books, ditch the electronic world, etc.
The weekend before Christmas, I bundle up whatever coins I’ve been dropping into my wishing well all year long and take them to Petsmart for the cat people to use.
Then I go home and prepare to fight off the Frost Giants.
Some neat trivia on Dec 25th. As summer turns to fall and then winter the sun rises slightly farther south on the horizon each day. That happens until Dec 21st. To the human eye the sun then appears to rise from the same place on the horizon for the next three days. Only on the 25th does the sun begin to ‘rise again’ after three days in the opposite direction. Hence, the tradition of the 25th celebration throughout history. Merry Christmas.
Thank you Mr. Pendry. I too love Christmas like a kid still.
Your words, “Inside, I am allowed to put up the tree and make sure the lights work then I am exiled. I am not good at hanging ornaments. My wife does not understand that these things need to be organized by size and shape and spaced uniformly.”, are the same in my home. My military mindset screams “uniformity” in all things. My wife on the other hand has a more eclectic view of ornament arrangement based on sentiment. My childhood desire to “throw hand fulls of tinsel” at the tree went by the wayside many years ago. She places one or two here and there until they are all evenly spaced. Her only sense of uniformity I might add.
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. – Jeremiah 29:13”
Thank you for that verse. God bless you and your family Mr. Pendry. I pray he brings you a joyful and truly Merry Christmas as I remember the true meaning of this season. The birth of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and with His birth, the love, grace and mercy of God our Father towards all people.
I don’t celebrate the holidays, but I do still find enjoyment in them. For all of you that do celebrate them, I wish you the greatest blessings.
JD–
Excellent read. I am going to pass it on to my old blogging family…I am not unlike your other half. I banish only when it’s time to put the garland on…The rest is up to who wants to help. What I find so pleasurable now, is that it is more about spending time together and not the stuff…It’s Rockwellian to be sure. Merry Christmas to you and yours from NC…