Keeping Christmas -

This is the beginning of (cue music) “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”.

As we each merry our way into gatherings with family and friends we may find ourselves enjoying the season so much that our responsibilities and necessary activities for our business growth get placed on the shelf along with the Elf.

It is interesting and important to slow down during the holiday season, to pause and reflect, to enjoy community, and to reflect on the year past and the year ahead.

One of my favorite writings reminds us that we are individuals, but we live in community. Our first responsibility is to be a positive piece of that community, to collaborate, to spread harmony, love and commitment.

It is a good reminder that we are part of something bigger, something greater than our everyday lives, desires, and actions. We are to live by the guidance and the power of kindness, decency, and love.

Why am I posting about Christmas on Thanksgiving? Tis the season…and these thoughts and ideas can guide you as you close the year and gather for the festivities.

Rather than try to break down what he says I will simply let you read his words:

“Keeping Christmas” by Henry Van Dyke (1924)

It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity.

But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, Keeping Christmas.

Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you
To ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world
To put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground
To see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy
To own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life
To close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can Keep Christmas.

Are you willing to…

Stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children
To remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old
To stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough
To bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts
To try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you
To trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you
To make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can Keep Christmas.

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world–stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death–and that the blessed life is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.