It’s almost Christmas Winter Celebration! Can you believe how fast life changes anymore? It seems like we just got done with Thanksgiving Feast of the Turkey, and put away the leftovers.  I guess it must be a sign of age when the days and nights blend together so fast.  As a child the excitement of summer vacation and the long days of sunshine and lazy unrestricted activity seemed to last forever.  Now, we just pray hope for an extra Monday, holiday or snow day to give us a break.  Life isn’t the same as you age.

As I watch life through adult eyes now, I tend to see the blueprint before the finished product, and it changes the way things happen, like it or not.  The carefree, unknowing it will just happen attitude I once had, is more cautious now, as I watch the excitement of the holidays unfold.  Knowing the final cost behind those plates of cookies, filled stockings and wrapped boxes, and the decisions and planning it took to make them happen does dim the magic a little.  However, what is lost in that innocence is replaced with a deeper happiness seeing and feeling the joy you were able to share with family and friends.  Santa a holiday character may get the credit at first, but as time passes the characters in your life that matter, mature and realize how hard you tried to make their prayers hopes and dreams come true in their childhood years.  This circle of life and knowledge is what keeps us grounded, secure and has to be the evolution of the journey God life intended.

I have to admit; at times I like knowing my adult children realize all the effort made on their behalf, for happiness and comfort all year long, not just at Christmas  Winter Festival of the Tree – selfish I know.  What I don’t like though,  is how the seasoning is being taken out of most seasons, because someone is unhappy or can’t be emotionally or spiritually comfortable.  I don’t want a Winter Festival to end my year and I am done with “hopes” for a better world.  I have beautiful grandchildren that deserve to delight and love the same Christmas  Holiday Gift Share their parents and grandparents did, with or without a lump of coal, and a school pageant would be a dream come true!

Not a day goes by the news does not report murdered and missing mothers and children, war is a fact of life for more than an entire generation, jobs are gone because of corporate greed and living an American Dream is more of a nightmare than ever before.  I don’t believe there is really any one direct source for all this darkness and despair, but as with anything it has a core that brought it life and it was nursed along towards consequences , which were inevitable.

So in the final days and weeks of this year, I am going to hold tight to the roots my parents gave me, and that their parents gave to them, and that is touching over a hundred years of tradition.   I am praying things get better for those I love and hold near and dear in my heart.  I am going to thank God for the joys that come with Christmas, and be thankful for the blessings in my life.  I will light more than one candle knowing the comfort of a spiritual presence in my home and be thankful I can do so without persecution.  When the nativity is placed under my Christmas tree this year, there will be both a vintage chalkware Mary and Joseph handed down for years, as well as Charlie Brown,  Lucy and Linus, who will be holding his Shepard staff protecting  his lone beagle flock.  I hope my grandson asks me when he points to baby Jesus in the manger, so we can talk about the core of human happiness and also laugh at Charlie Brown’s tree, the love in human kindness, understanding and friendship and the hope behind the first star.

Words get a grammatical strike through if they are politically incorrect, wrong or just not right.  The life we now live and give to our children and grandchildren, is accepting the same strike through only towards people, emotions and reactions are uncontrollable, unacceptable or unwanted.  Sadly, if you have ever tried to control sand in your grasp you know it is impossible and eventually you are left empty.  Control is that sand, a selfish emotion  leaving everyone involved empty in some capacity.  So give someone if not yourself,  the best Christmas gift there is this year, and allow those around you  experience, love and live life as they see fit, and help them along in their journey if you are able.  Because the road we are on now doesn’t have a prayer of success for A men or A women.