Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010 will go down in history as a great holiday celebration.

Peace on earth. Good will to men.

It is, indeed, all about that.

If there was no Internet, evening news, radio talk shows or morning newspapers, and if we paid closer attention to our own psychic lives, Christmas 2010 would be pristine.

It would be alive with spirit if our lives could go untouched by the weak and ineffectual politics of the day and unbesmirched by the pettiness and the one dimensional nature of the media battle seeming to chart so much of the course this nation is taking.

Without negative news, without following the 24/7 news cycle, without giving in to negative reports about the economy and our lives in general, the holiday would loom larger where it counts – in our hearts and minds.

If we could in fact come away for a few hours from the shopping centers and the crude and rampant materialistic battles we fight everyday as Americans, there would be the chance to get in sync with the holiday and to celebrate what it is supposed to be all about – the birth of Christ.

Despite the trials and tribulations of living in a bad economy, and in a rapidly changing nation and world, this year’s Christmas celebration remains just that – a celebration.

We are a nation at odds with ourselves at the moment.

Nothing seems to be working the way it used to work.

It is a frustrating time, a time when our self doubts abound about a future we cannot put  a hand on.

Questions about the future are abundant and frankly, no one among us looking into a crystal ball can determine just where we are heading.

We know where we have been.

At the moment we are stuck where we are, stuck like pebbles in the frozen earth.

So it is Christmas.

There is a positive spirit, Yuletide decorations and lighting, bitter cold that awakens us, evergreen wreaths and trees and the wonderful sights and sounds of the holiday.

In the immortal words of William Wordsworth:

The minstrels played their Christmas tune

To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;

While smitten by a lofty moon,

The encircling laurels thick with leaves.

Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,

That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze

Had sunk to rest with folded wings:

Keen was the air, but could not freeze,

Nor check, the music of the strings;

So stout and hardy were the band

That scraped the chords with strenuous hand.

And who but listened?-till was paid

Respect to every inmate’s claim,

The greeting given, the music played

In honor of each household name,

Duly pronounced with lusty call,

And “Merry Christmas” wished to all.