I am struck with how quiet the holiday season is this year. It’s not just in my own family, but across the country at large. The malls are not teeming with people; I don’t know if the churches are. The catalogs that stuff our mailbox aren’t being poured over; I don’t know if corresponding website are experiencing extra traffic. And my sons with their significant others are not coming to join the festivities.
It seems right, actually. This has been a difficult year; and while it’s appropriate to feel joy at the Christmas/Hannukah/Kwaanza seasons it’s also appropriate to cut back. Who among us hasn’t lost something in the way of investments, real estate value, savings accounts, health, and comfort? Who among us isn’t counting pennies at gas pumps and grocery stores and restaurants? Who among us isn’t worried about 2009?
Which is why being quiet this holiday is good. We can still share time with each other without exchanging lavish gifts. We can have wonderful meals without straining budgets. And we can still wish each other the blessings of the season. Because it’s really not about how much we spend or how much we pig out or drink. Instead, it’s about the spiritual component that is more visible when all those other things recede.
As Dickens’ Tiny Tim remarked, “God bless us everyone.”
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