Christmas Everyday?

 Peace on earth will come to stay when we live Christmas everyday.

Helen Steiner Rice

Merry Christmas!  I want to wish you that every day of the year.  I want you to realize that which we seek so desperately in this version of Christmas we created...every single day of the year. So if I have to keep  a tree up all year and sing you Christmas carols in order for you to realize  this elusive, sought after "experience" , maybe that would be worthwhile?

Huh?  What the heck are you talking about crazy lady?  I thought you didn't like Christmas?

Hungering for the Experience Christmas is 'Supposed' to Provide

It is not that I don't like Christmas. In fact, I hunger for that "experience' we seek from it, more than most do.  I have just come to realize that "this thing we are looking for in Christmas"  is not necessarily found on this one  day of the year so expertly allotted for it.  Christmas' is just an idea...you get that right? What have we, as a culture done to this "idea" of Christmas? I mean...by all means ...find a day out of the year to celebrate the teachings of one of the greatest beings that ever walked the planet.  ( I am going to get in trouble for saying "one of"...aren't I?) . Celebrate His birth and live the greatest message he shared: "Peace"...but we do need to examine how we are doing that. 

The Pressure to Be Jolly

Every year I see that more and more...this pressure to keep up with the collective expectation...the desperate seeking for a moment of this "peace" during the hectic , busy time it has become.  I get caught up in it....pulled along by expectation and sometimes I am even the one pulling others along with my expectations. I do have moments of  joy ...I do...I love the warm lights and decorations, sweet memories the traditions induce, being with my loved ones, and seeing the happy, excited faces of  children. I feel myself, at those times,  opening up a bit more so this peace that is in all of us can come through. 

It doesn't last though and then I think there is something wrong with me. I spend many more moments over the holiday though...rushing, caught up in "busy, unmindful doing", worried that I may offend someone with not getting them a gift or not getting the right gift or not being fair n my distribution of wealth ( that's a joke lol)...trying to get all my family together under one roof for a meal.  I find myself stressed and literally, though I don't want to admit it out loud, waiting for December 27th to come.  I believe, when I realize this in me, that  I  am lacking in Christmas spirit and therefore I am defective.  How many people feel this way, I wonder.  I do know that this season has one of the highest suicide rates, slips in  addicts and  loneliness. Why do you think that is?

Peace is Beyond Attachment and Expectation

 I realize, so clearly now, it isn't the season or the traditions or the getting together that brings me these momentary glimpses of peace...if I am lucky enough to get them. Christmas is a celebration of Christ. Christ taught that peace is within us and cannot be found in the external world.  What we have culturally done with this time of year does not honor Him or His teachings! It doesn't represent "Peace!" We want that peace but  this deep  human hunger  has been so manipulated, habituated, exploited  and used over the years  for the purpose of the collective ego. ...as a means to control our beliefs, our spending, our commercialism.   This peace He taught about and was born to share...is not "out there".  It is not in the stores or under the tree.  It isn't in the stockings hung by the chimney with care. It isn't in the Christmas Carols or the traditions passed down from generation to generation. It isn't in the stories, the  movies we watch or the lights we put on our houses.  It isn't even in that splurge of generosity we feel  as we say Merry Christmas to strangers and plop a few bucks into a kettle.  Those are all sweet and harmless and perfectly okay. ..wholesome even...but our "attachment" to them and our "expectation" for this day is not wholesome.  It does not bring peace. It represents our culturally conditioned way of being in this world: seek outside for happiness, cling, attach, overspend, overindulge, numb etc etc

The peace Christmas is supposed to give us, to quench a thirst most of us are not even aware we have, is in us already...and what the collective mind has done with this  season...takes us farther away from it rather than closer to it.   There is nothing wrong with Christmas but our expectations and our attachment to this "idea" of it will not serve us.  Sure...we can feel peace at Christmas and what a wonderful thing that is if we do but this peace we seek is not reserved for this day only.  We can feel it everyday...if we just stop looking out there for something that is already in us.  If we keep our hearts open we can bring joy to the world every single day of the entire year.

So I have no problem with Christmas...just with what we do with it.  The only gift of value is peace...and I can't wrap that for you and put it under your tree. You won't find it there. It is already in you. When you are ready to unwrap the world ego provides, you will find it there.

So Merry Christmas...today and everyday!

All is well.