Welcome, Ven a gozar!

Christmas arrived, we traded presents, had Christmas dinner, and most of us went to church to worship. In general, we did most things that belong to Christmas. Now, we wonder what we are going to do with all the new goodies we have we received either as presents from others, or maybe one or two special gifts we bought just for us.

I used to think this was all there was to Christmas. After Christmas is over I would sit, and wait for New Years Eve, so I can get going with my life again. I would spend this time thinking five days until New Years Eve, four days, and three days, until New Years Eve arrived. When the New Year arrives, we either tell someone about our new intentions, or we would remind ourselves what they are, as we start to break them.

I think just like we celebrate the birth of Jesus, or at least acknowledge that is what most people are celebrating; we should also celebrate a new birth for ourselves. If we see ourselves being reborn, we can have no history of how we acted in the past, how we treated others, or perhaps even how we treated ourselves. We can have a new beginning to start the New Year.

Over the years I have come to look at Christmas in a different light. I now see Christmas with more purpose than merely exchanging presents with family and friends, and going to Church to celebrate. I now think more about celebrating Christmas, and what that means to my life. I now have more real meaning for Christmas, and the days after, other than simply giving out presents, and dreading the bills coming in the mail.

It seemed pretty pointless to me as I watched people in stores, looking depressed and angry as they were buying presents. Christmas for them had turned from something that should be looked forward to, to something endured. Some people were arguing with family members, swearing at them, and generally being mean to one another. They were buying presents not because they wanted to, but because they felt compelled to.

Christmas can be a time of us being reborn, wiping the last year(s) away, and living life in the present. The present moment is the way life is meant to be lived, and it is the moment we should be in. Living in the present moment, gives us freedom from the past, freedom to live our lives in a different way, not bound to what we did yesterday.

Living life in the moment, we can be honest with one another, and let our real self be in charge of us, instead of living our lives on autopilot, acting the same way we did the day before Christmas because that is the way we have always acted. If there is someone we are always at odds with, these first few days after Christmas can be used to decide how we really want to interact with them. I doubt in most instances how we act is what we would choose - if we stop and think before acting.

Thinking this way about Christmas does not mean that life will change over night, and everything will be wonderful. Many of the ways we treat one another has evolved over time, and it will not change easily, because it has grown comfortable for us, and those we interact with. Change will take some time of course.

Right now, in that time between Christmas, and the New Year when we have finished one holiday, and we are waiting for the next, we have time to think about our being born anew, and how we can start over and change our life. At the very worst, using this time to think about how we really want to be, and how we really treat others in our lives is useful. Using this in between time gives us a few day head start on our New Year resolutions. So even if everything does not change that quickly, we have a couple of days head start on the rest of our family and friends and their intentions.

Comments (0) Dec 27 2007