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A More Simple Christmas

Christmas. What a wonderful time of year.

Many people have various reasons for loving Christmas. For some it can be the presents. For others it could be spending time with family (and not at work!). Some people love it because of the snow and the cold. Others think its great because of all the decorations and lights and things. There are thousands of reasons why people love Christmas. And I just thought I would take a quick minute to share mine with you.

My favorite part of Christmas is the nostalgia. I absolutely love the connection with the old days. Whether it is a beautiful picture of a horse and sleigh shooshing through the snow to get to a far away country home or if I am watching White Christmas – I love the fact that Christmas connects us with how life used to be.

Really, I am not trying to spell out doom and gloom or anything by defaming Christmas in its present form today (no pun intended). Even though Christmas today is different than it used to be, that is not all bad. No, the reason that I love the nostalgia around Christmas is because it takes us back to a simpler time – a time where everything about Christmas was much more simple yet no less joyful.

I love seeing people get delighted over a cup of hot chocolate. I love it that families used to read Christmas stories around the fire to each other. I am amazed that simple gifts like marbles and oranges and candies and nuts were met with smiles and excitement when found in stockings. I love that people actually used to carol. I love it that snow was a big deal. I love it that people used to only get one present each – and that was a great Christmas. I think it is so cool that people used to stand around the piano together and sing Christmas songs. I love that folk used to go downtown to shop and walk around and see all of the Christmas decorations. I love that Christmas trees were all real, and they were decorated with popcorn and tinsel and holly. I love that eggnog was a specialty. All of these incredibly simple things were considered such treats to people in years past.

Can we ever connect the present with the past? I hope so. I know things will never be like they used to be. But I also know that some elements of the Christmas spirit in years past can be incorporated into our Christmas lives today. We can look in wonder at the beautiful Christmas trees that we pass everyday. We can bask in the glow of all the Christmas lights that surround us. We can treat presents more like gifts and less like obligations. We can walk downtown and see the shops. We can enjoy our moments in the snow. We can sing the old songs and tell the old stories. We can connect the present and the past.

Really, we are not doing that bad today. But I think that we can learn a lot from looking back. They were doing a lot of things right back then. There’s a reason those were the ‘‘good ‘ol days’’. And it would be good for us to take a more simple approach to Christmas – to take joy in the actual things and not the quantity of something.

And, of course, the farther we look back to connect the present with the past leads us all the way to Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus…and that was a pretty simple Christmas, too.

Merry Christmas, ya’ll. Enjoy the simple pleasures of the season.