Christmas about peace, hope, love
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Maybe you have already hung the stockings by the chimney with care and are putting your feet up this Christmas Eve. Or, like many people, maybe you are still frantically buying gifts — not the perfect gift at this late hour but as good as you can muster on adrenaline and a looming deadline.
For tomorrow is Christmas, a day when families and friends gather to celebrate many things: the birth of Jesus, the winter solstice, the promise of light after the darkest time of the year or simply being together.
Whatever the celebration, an important part of the holiday for many people will be exchanging gifts. Children will lie awake listening for Santa and his reindeer. Brightly wrapped packages will beckon tantalizingly from under the tree. And when the time comes, presents will be ripped open to polite smiles, heartfelt thanks and squeals of joy.
It is a wonderful time of year. But it is also an expensive time of year. In 2003, Canadians expected to spend an average of $761 on Christmas gifts and another $724 on holiday clothing, decorations and travel, an Ipsos-Reid poll found. Many people take months to pay off their holiday bills.
Some iconoclasts, though, are pushing back against this Christmas tide of big spending, debt and commercialism.
Take Aiden Enns, for instance. The 43-year-old Winnipeg man is a co-founder of Buy Nothing Christmas, a movement that seeks to moderate frenzied holiday buying and reclaim the Christmas spirit.
His Buy Nothing Christmas website — www.buynothingchristmas.org — suggests dozens of ways to give gifts without breaking the bank, including framing a piece of your own artwork, offering free babysitting, knitting a hat and giving a used book.
But Enns, a Mennonite and former editor of Adbusters magazine, is no grinch. This year, he and his wife are giving their 18 nieces and nephews homemade pillowcases. Last year, it was picture frames. "Don't buy Christmas," says Enns. "Be alive and create your own Christmas."
Clearly, Enns' message is idealistic. It also may be quite a bit radical for most of us. After all, who doesn't love watching a child's eyes light up when a longed-for toy turns up under the tree? Or the joy of hunting long and hard and finally knowing you have found exactly the right thing for a cherished friend or favourite aunt?
Despite the urge to dismiss the Buy Nothing Christmas campaign as folly, some of us can learn from it about the true spirit of the season.
Stripped of its modern commercial trappings, Christmas is still about peace, hope and love. It is about spending time with loved ones and reconnecting with old friends. It is about trying to be a better person and seeking a better world free of poverty, war and hate.
It is about breaking from the ordinary to embrace the extraordinary.
Christmas is also about giving, in both words and actions.
That is why many of us this holiday season have donated money and gifts to charities across the city, including the Star's Santa Claus Fund.
It is also why so many of us are giving generously of our time this Christmas to visit elderly shut-ins, help out a neighbour, carol at hospitals and nursing homes, pack boxes at food banks and serve meals to the needy and sick who live among us.
Yet in this bustling cosmopolitan city, it is easy to become distracted from the things that really matter.
After all the relatives have left, the leftover turkey is eaten and the presents are put away, we will return to our hurried lives. We will go back to work and school, we will raise our children as best we can, we will pay our taxes, we will try to get ahead in whatever we do. And we will lose sight of the goodwill, generosity and mystery that suffuse this wondrous season.
So this year, store the holiday spirit in your soul. Remember the peace and joy you feel at this special time. And give generously of yourself to your family, friends and community — not just during the holiday season but the whole year through.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
--------------------
Maybe you have already hung the stockings by the chimney with care and are putting your feet up this Christmas Eve. Or, like many people, maybe you are still frantically buying gifts — not the perfect gift at this late hour but as good as you can muster on adrenaline and a looming deadline.
For tomorrow is Christmas, a day when families and friends gather to celebrate many things: the birth of Jesus, the winter solstice, the promise of light after the darkest time of the year or simply being together.
Whatever the celebration, an important part of the holiday for many people will be exchanging gifts. Children will lie awake listening for Santa and his reindeer. Brightly wrapped packages will beckon tantalizingly from under the tree. And when the time comes, presents will be ripped open to polite smiles, heartfelt thanks and squeals of joy.
It is a wonderful time of year. But it is also an expensive time of year. In 2003, Canadians expected to spend an average of $761 on Christmas gifts and another $724 on holiday clothing, decorations and travel, an Ipsos-Reid poll found. Many people take months to pay off their holiday bills.
Some iconoclasts, though, are pushing back against this Christmas tide of big spending, debt and commercialism.
Take Aiden Enns, for instance. The 43-year-old Winnipeg man is a co-founder of Buy Nothing Christmas, a movement that seeks to moderate frenzied holiday buying and reclaim the Christmas spirit.
His Buy Nothing Christmas website — www.buynothingchristmas.org — suggests dozens of ways to give gifts without breaking the bank, including framing a piece of your own artwork, offering free babysitting, knitting a hat and giving a used book.
But Enns, a Mennonite and former editor of Adbusters magazine, is no grinch. This year, he and his wife are giving their 18 nieces and nephews homemade pillowcases. Last year, it was picture frames. "Don't buy Christmas," says Enns. "Be alive and create your own Christmas."
Clearly, Enns' message is idealistic. It also may be quite a bit radical for most of us. After all, who doesn't love watching a child's eyes light up when a longed-for toy turns up under the tree? Or the joy of hunting long and hard and finally knowing you have found exactly the right thing for a cherished friend or favourite aunt?
Despite the urge to dismiss the Buy Nothing Christmas campaign as folly, some of us can learn from it about the true spirit of the season.
Stripped of its modern commercial trappings, Christmas is still about peace, hope and love. It is about spending time with loved ones and reconnecting with old friends. It is about trying to be a better person and seeking a better world free of poverty, war and hate.
It is about breaking from the ordinary to embrace the extraordinary.
Christmas is also about giving, in both words and actions.
That is why many of us this holiday season have donated money and gifts to charities across the city, including the Star's Santa Claus Fund.
It is also why so many of us are giving generously of our time this Christmas to visit elderly shut-ins, help out a neighbour, carol at hospitals and nursing homes, pack boxes at food banks and serve meals to the needy and sick who live among us.
Yet in this bustling cosmopolitan city, it is easy to become distracted from the things that really matter.
After all the relatives have left, the leftover turkey is eaten and the presents are put away, we will return to our hurried lives. We will go back to work and school, we will raise our children as best we can, we will pay our taxes, we will try to get ahead in whatever we do. And we will lose sight of the goodwill, generosity and mystery that suffuse this wondrous season.
So this year, store the holiday spirit in your soul. Remember the peace and joy you feel at this special time. And give generously of yourself to your family, friends and community — not just during the holiday season but the whole year through.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
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posted by þΛųL jØŋαŦhΛŋ @ 22:30
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