What do you want for Christmas?
In my earlier years, I had an extensive list of wants and needs, but no longer. What I’ve learned on this journey of gathering all this grey hair, is what I most want and need is nothing you can buy, make, or wrap-up with a bow.
In our consumer-driven society, we’ve been led to believe the newest, latest, and greatest thing is going to bring us happiness. New stuff may bring us momentary happiness, yet this happiness quickly fades.
I’ve found happiness isn’t so much about what I can get, but what I can give.
The events of 2020, for many, have clarified what’s most important in life.
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Solstice, or one or none of the many holy days celebrated at this time of year, the wisdom of Henry Van Dyck, from early in the 20th century, would indeed be a gift that would transform our lives.
Keeping Christmas
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 men and women are just as real as you are,
and to try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;
to own up to the fact 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 desires of little children;
to remember the weakness and loneliness of people 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 in their hearts;
to try to understand what those who live in the same home with you
really want, without waiting for them to tell 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.
- Henry Van Dyke
Life’s taught me it’s not so much about what I get, but about what I can give. For me, the true juice of happiness comes from being the change I would love to see in this world.
I thank Rev. Dr. Patricia Campbell from Calgary for introducing me to this thought-provoking writing that’s added more of what I truly want to my Christmas list.
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.