During the last few weeks I’ve spoken with both Christmas-lovers and Christmas-haters; which has caused me to reflect on the dichotomy of the season.
On the one hand we’re taught that Christmas is a time to spread joy and share with others. It’s a reason to spend quality time with loved ones, and to take a time-out from the routine of everyday life. Christmas is a time to engage with the comforts of tradition; whether celebrating the birth of a baby in a manger or the arrival of a jolly soul in a red suit.
For many, though, the other side isn’t as nice. For one, it’s a very busy time of year when they really just want to relax. The pressures of getting the right gifts, fighting the crowds to do so, and the demands on their time with family commitments can be overwhelming.
And then there are the problems many of us see on a larger scale: the billions of dollars we spend as a nation on the things we don’t need, and the real unhappiness this season actually brings to many. We go beyond our financial means to feed the machine that produces the goods designed to keep us distracted and entertained – with the empty promises of filling all our spiritual and emotional voids. The things we consume in alarming quantities at Christmas are largely produced at the earth’s expense; assembled by the unseen others who aspire to reach the level of material comfort we enjoy via the lottery of birth. We fear that our children are becoming greedy as they’re relentlessly marketed to in every TV commercial and storefront window; and we spend all this money while millions continue to starve worldwide.
But then, again, we put all this aside and return to the comforts of our own existence. We delight in the smiles on our children’s faces as they unwrap their gifts on Christmas morning. We catch up with old friends, sing some carols, enjoy a hearty meal with all the trimmings, and give thanks for our blessings.
Given these dichotomies, its little wonder that the holiday season is so stress-provoking for many.
It’s important to focus on the things we can control versus the things we can’t. To maintain a healthy and helpful perspective, it’s a good idea to be aware of both sides of a coin – and to understand that dichotomies can and do exist. We can experience things like joy, excitement, stress, and injustice simultaneously; but we need to do so consciously: focusing on what’s good about the season while acknowledging those things that cause our dissonance. By doing so we can deliberately choose our actions: engaging fully in the things that feed our spirit, and doing what we can to help remediate the rest.
