Merry Christmas! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy Hanukkah! Happy holidays!
Whether you practice Christianity or not, this is one time during the year when you can celebrate your family, enjoy your friends, and be grateful for your blessings. No matter what your particular beliefs, this is an incredible and wonderful time of the year. The sights, the smells, the music, the sharing of the beauty of the season. The love of family and friends. Perhaps a tree or decorations. Homemade or bought gifts. Worship. Poinsettias. The good food. The cookies!
Ahh … the cookies.
Let me name the ways!
Soft sugar cookies. Betty buttons. Peanut butter crunchies. Pinwheels. Buckeyes. Cheesecake truffles. Dark chocolate anything. Marshmallow cookies. Peppermint bark. Anise-almond biscotti. Chocolate chip tea cookies. Coconut macaroons. Pistachio biscotti. Homemade Oreos. Italian fig cookies. Empire walnut cookies. Lebkuchen. Nut crescents. Peanut butter blossoms. Pizzelle. Soft and chewy sugar cookies. Ginger cookies. Rugelach. Snickerdoodles. Chocolate babka. Pecan tarts. Gingerbread men. Rum balls. Chocolate chip cookies. Oatmeal raisin delights …
Not everyone has Christmas cookies at the top of his or her wish list. In my case, I live in the house of my dreams. I have a wonderful wife and loving children and grandchildren. I have a good job and a number of close friends. I am healthy, more or less. And I am surrounded by good things and good people.
Not everyone is as lucky as me. Some people are not seeing Christmas as a joyous time. Some are worried about their jobs. Others worry about their health or that of a loved one. Some people are concerned about being deported back to a place where their very lives and those of their loved ones are at immediate risk.
This year in particular, it is difficult for me to look at Christmas as a time for rejoicing. I worry that we are losing the real meaning of Christmas. I worry that some of us are replacing it with a celebration of personal excesses without thought or consideration of the plight of others.
In the days of Ed Sullivan, Andy Williams and Rosemary Clooney, there was a song that became a Christmas classic, “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.”
Everybody stops and stares at meThese two teeth are gone as you can seeI don’t know just who to blame for this catastropheBut my one wish on Christmas Eve is as plain as can beAll I want for Christmas is my two front teethMy two front teethSee my two front teethGee, if I could only have my two front teeth,Then I could wish you Merry Christmas!
This song was written in 1944 before the end of World War II. It was a time when right was right and everything else was wrong, when gossip and back-biting ruled the day, when you were supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, even if you didn’t have any boots.
The song was a reflection of hard days when answers seemed easy and people knew their place. White people dominated entertainment, politics, banks and business, while minorities had their own bathrooms, drinking fountains and couldn’t live where they wanted, sit on a bus or at a lunch counter.
The song didn’t address these needs, the injustices of race or sexual preferences, or the storm we faced even then around politics. It’s not that these things didn’t exist. Not by a long shot.
Since then, improvements have happened in medicine, race relations, strides in equality of men and women, science, education, transportation, communication, longevity and more. But there is one area that has not improved.
And that is how we treat one another. Unbridled is our belief that we have the freedom to say whatever pops into our minds, that we can paint others unfairly if it is to our advantage, that respecting alternative opinions makes us weak, and that destroying another is just fine if it suits our purposes.
A magic wand could be impactful. Some might pay off their bills, drive a nicer truck, take the kids to Disney World, or buy more luxuries. Others would stop immigration, legislate someone else’s bedroom, buy more powerful guns, and lock up liberals on an island in the ocean. But none of that has anything to do with Christmas.
Christmas and cookies sound so simple. Unfortunately, very little in life is simple. Yet, as we celebrate Christmas let us put our differences aside and do what we can to emulate what Jesus would have had us do. Love one another, help those who need help, and make our world a better place for the least among us.
Merry Christmas!
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, Shippensburg University Trustee, and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx software coordinates and drives communication, specifying, approval, procurement or production, reporting and activities necessary to obtaining direct mail, marketing materials, promo and all other printing. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].
