Holidays from the heart
It’s that time of year. Christmas carols ring through the malls, holiday candy fills grocery store aisles, jingle bells ring on shop doors, and snow is falling—well, for most of us, snow is not falling. It’s the Season of Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Chanukah, but what do these holidays actually celebrate? Behind the rich aroma of the baking ham, the spiced cider, the candles, the busy rush-hour traffic there is still the quiet pulse of the human heart.
But amidst the bustle and business, sometimes you wonder if we’ve forgotten something. Though we give our children gifts, do we teach them the meaning of generosity? Or are we implicitly (or maybe even sometimes explicitly) teaching them that everything in life is essentially a business deal, a “you do for me, and I’ll do for you” mentality. But consumerism is not the same thing as community. There’s no magic in materialism. Sometimes it feels like shopping and entertainment and travel have replaced the spirit of this beautiful holiday spirit, and sometimes we can just feel like a money machine and empty.
What do these holidays personally mean to us? Have we found time to reflect on what we care about and who we love? Or have we become automatic, buying gifts, decorating the house, checking off our long To-Do lists? Are we just doing our duty? Meeting the status-quo? Or are we digging down deep and living from our hearts? Are we really loving the people in front of us, or are we just dreaming of a white Christmas?
So: what do you love about the holidays? Who do you long to see again? What are your favorite traditions and pastimes, and what makes them so beautiful for you? Do you have a meal together with friends and family, or do you travel with your sweetheart? It’s never too late to grab the one you love, and to tell them. It’s never too late to rediscover what the holidays are all about. And it’s never too late to live, and to live deeply, not just fast.
Tags: authors, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, love, materialism, publicist nyc, publicity nyc, sherri rosen publicity nyc
This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2012 at 2:56 pm and is filed under African American, Clients, Friends and Colleagues, jewish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
