River News: Our View

As Burl Ives once sang, Christmas, it’s the best time of the year, and Christmas Day is undoubtedly the world’s most anticipated day, for various reasons.

There’s Santa, of course, who will soon be sleighing across the sky to your homes. Around here, we believe in Santa Claus. However, just to be on the safe side, this year we once again used all available journalistic methods to see if there is any evidence supporting those who say Santa isn’t real.

Let us be clear: After exhaustive research, we have found not one shred of evidence that Santa Claus does not exist. This, despite an open records request sent to the North Pole. We hasten to add that no one there redacted any records or sent them to the North Pole’s corporation counsel for review. 

So, for kids of all ages out there, safe to say, Santa exists: You’d better be good, you’d better be nice.

More important, Christmas is a religious celebration of the birth of Jesus. Christian churches throughout the land fill to capacity to mark the holy birthday, but so many more, unable to attend an organized service for whatever reason, acknowledge the coming of their Christ in their hearts and souls.

To be sure, this time of year is not only for Christians, though it tends to sweep all other commemorations under its decorative umbrella. Hanukah, the Jewish celebration that reaffirms the values of Judaism and pays honor to the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, was December 7-15, and it too touches the hearts and souls of millions of its faith this time of year.

Millions and millions more, neither Christian nor Jewish, take this time of year, too, to reflect upon matters of spiritual importance to them as the calendar year winds down.

Against this spiritual backdrop, with festivities that underscore the end of another year, a key mood emerges: a mood of inner reflection, or prayer if you will.

Christmas is so distinct in that way. Thanksgiving is for giving thanks for all we are blessed to have attained, as well as to be reminded of what others lack so that we may be generous of spirit and pocket. New Year’s points in the opposite direction, from giving thanks for what we have accumulated — tangible and intangible riches alike — to dreams of the future and what we still may accomplish. The new year gives us a blank canvas that we can paint anew. 

There’s nothing like a fresh start.

Christmas is different. Christmas is unique. It is the bridge between the two. Whether we are religious or not, the Christmas season let’s us walk from the banks of thanks to the shores of hope. It gives us time as we cross the river of our lives, the years that flow under the bridge, to reflect upon what it all means, and to relish the here and now — not the year past, or the year ahead, but all that life presents to us in the moment and in its oh so festive way.

Friends and families gather around, for reflection is not merely a personal but also a communal human trait, and instant, living memories are the stuff that Christmas is made of. They remind us that life is lived in the present, and that each such minute of our lives gives us something more precious than accomplishment and dreams. Each living minute brings to us neither memory nor hope but the breath and the touch, the laughter and the love of those around us right now, in heart and in flesh.

Holiday unions and reunions only amplify the importance of each and every living minute, so fleeting as they are.

At the holiday, we are able to look around and understand that the faces around that Christmas table are in fact the product of our past life, and they are equally the living manifestation of all our hopes and dreams, for it is they for whom we all pursue better lives.

“They” are all that matters in the end, and at Christmas, more than at any time, we understand that. We look into the eyes of family and friends, but we see inside ourselves. We do not give thanks in such moments. We do not dream. We reflect, and think about what is important in this world and in this life. 

And it’s not hard to see what’s really important. They are all sitting right beside you, at the table or in the heart.

Such a scene cannot help but be festive. Our personal reflections and family gatherings bring alive the incarnate character of Christmas lights and candy canes and Santa Claus. They bring alive the voices of countless Christmas choirs, and they stir the hearth and stoke the warmth for all those in our lives and the love they bring to our homes, wrapped as presents under the tree.

This year, as we cross the bridge from one year to the next, let us pause to live in the moment once again, for that is when the taste of life is at its freshest and sweetest. 

Or to say it another way, you can’t caress a memory, you can’t kiss a dream, but everybody can reach out and hug the people around your holiday table. 

So Merry Christmas to all, and to all a holiday hug, at this, the very best time of year.