What is the meaning of Christmas?
Have you ever stopped to reflect on what Christmas means to you?
Christmas is time for joy and being thankful that we are who we are. For some it is a time of deep reflection while others experience the loss of a loved one with profound sorrow. Christmas means something different to everyone and the respect we show our fellow man during this time of year shows each and every one of us just what time of person we truly are.
Unlike Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, we do not have three ghosts to come and show us all of the bad - or even good - things that have happened in our lives. Things that made us who we are today. The only thing we have is our own conscience and for some people that is simply not enough. Only we can take responsibility for our actions, and at Christmas time, one can only hope that are actions are gentle and kind to those less fortunate.
Christmas means peace, love, and family togetherness for some
For many Christmas is a time to celebrate peace and good will toward men. This has been carried out by soldiers far from home on the battlefields where cease fires have been called on Christmas Eve and hostilities resumed on Boxing Day. It is at this point in time many soldiers on either side of the battlefield see the other for who they really are: young men and women fighting for their separate causes and no different then their counterparts across the way. They all have families. They all live, laugh, and love.
Christmas for some is the simple goodness of family being around. As hectic as a full house may seem, the family matriarch always loves it when her children come back to the nest even for just a short period of time. Her eyes glow with pride, and she smiles in affection at the sibling bickering going on in the next room.
What Christmas means for you is personal
Football games, carol singing, midnight masses, candlelight, good food, good friends, and presents are represent something to everyone when it comes to defining what Christmas means to a person. Even if you are like the Griswold’s in ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’ trying to outdo the neighbor’s lights, Christmas represents something to you, even it is wacky competition to see if the International Space Station can see you all the way up there.
It is all about what is in your heart and soul and the love you feel for your friends and family. It is different for everyone.
And that’s all right.