We approach the holiday season each year with a variety of choices between thanksgiving and misgivings. For many the holidays are a welcome relief from the drudgery of commuting to the cubicle. Fellowship with family and friends and the festivity of traditions from around the world blended together in a uniquely American way is something that sustains us from the darkening days of October well into the next year.
For some of us the holidays are less than festive when we are basted in happy images of perfect families feasting from a cornucopia of material prosperity; images which invite us to compare or own less sparkling reality to something that is, for most people, virtual and unattainable. Holiday marketing does for many of us what images of half starved, made-over models “Photoshopped” for magazine covers does for the self esteem of “average” young girls who compare themselves to pictures of glittering unreality and forget their own innate beauty.
Holidays are a much needed break in routine for most of us, but for many the busy routine is some protection from the remembrance of things past – and when that routine is broken, holidays can be a reminder of the empty seats at the table, the companions who have passed on, the children who have grown up and gone away. I will always remember visiting my favorite aunt in the nursing home during her last Christmas on this earth, the miniature decorations in her window, the way she sat quiet and alone in her room, staring out of the window and across the years…
Many Americans will enjoy the holidays with considerably less material prosperity than they did last year. A decade of grim headlines and color coded fears will end this year with the weakest dollar of our lifetimes, with high unemployment and higher prices for food and fuel. Some of us who have spent a lifetime measuring success and gauging happiness in terms of material things will have a chance to shift our awareness this year. We can choose to be thankful for the friends and family we still have while so many are alone, for the job we complain about when so many have none, for the opportunities that this great land still produces and for the freedoms we have and take for granted. We will gather and we will feast as we have done in the past, but perhaps this year our festivities will be tempered by a greater awareness of the planet we live on rather than the empire we live in - and perhaps by a little more compassion for our fellow travelers.
We know not the number of our days and as the wheel of time turns, many things diminish. My own circle has grown smaller over the years and there will be many empty seats around the table at Thanksgiving. I do not know how many more days I will be privileged to share a meal or enjoy a holiday with loved ones. When we are young we spend our days like tossing coins into a fountain. Nature tells me that for some loved ones there are fewer coins remaining than have been spent, but oh how precious is this treasure and how golden. In these moments there is real prosperity and a source of heartfelt thanksgiving.
