Giving

With every trip I take around the sun, my empathy for my parents and grandparents grows. This is especially true during this most wonderful time of the year. As the husband and I pulled down our boxes (upon boxes) of fabulous Xmas decorations last week, I thought of my childhood holiday decorating routine. What I thought was, "Oooh, so THIS is why Mom made us wait to decorate until she was good and ready."

It's a freakin' unholy, exhausting mess, that's why!

Truthfully, I really do love the Xmas rituals...well, at least, my Xmas rituals. I love putting the crazy, handmade, felt Santa cozy on the toilet seat lid; I love the achy-armed fifteen minutes it takes to hand-whip the eggs for one batch of Grandma's 1938 Betty Crocker recipe for Dream Bars; I love sitting on the floor with a pillow room-divider between us as we watch White Christmas and carefully sift through last year's box of wrapping paper to reuse on this year's gifts.

These days, though, my rituals involve the very minimum when it comes to shopping for gifts. The thrill is gone. The societal pressure to stack the gifts high and buy that perfect something for every person who may have crossed my path for five seconds throughout the last year pretty much exhausts the crap out of me.

Man, the cynicism which has emerged in my old age sure is a bitch. I can't even enjoy the simple rush of a last-minute holiday retail bender anymore!

SOLUTION 2007

At work, this year I asked my boss if we could replace the obligatory gift-baskets with monetary donations to a couple of local non-profits; and, he said yes. We sent out a letter, which explained that we chose to make the donation in their names, to our usual list of holiday card and gift-basket recipients. Within twenty-four hours, we had received two phone calls and one hand-delivered letter of gratitude for our unusual gesture. It worked! And it felt great.

So, the husband and I decided to try the same at home. For one side of the family, we donated money to a niece's college fund; and, for the other side, we purchased tree seedlings for farmer's in Asia. For our friends, we purchased bee colonies for villages in South America. Not only did we enjoy putting together packages of homemade cards and treats to go along with the donation, but we also were able to avoid participating in the shopping hysteria of the season.

You'd be amazed by how much energy you are left with to face the rest of the holiday obligations when you don't have to dive into a round of Xmas Eve mall shopping. Next year, I'm going to remember this alternate giving ritual when it comes time to deck the halls once again.

Mind Games Forever

For every birthday candle blow out, for every penny thrown into a fountain, for every shooting star, it's always the same wish: world peace, now, pretty please.

Hope springs eternal, right?

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked the question, "What do you feel is the biggest problem in the world today?" My immediate answer was that people aren't treating each other with enough care, that there's just not enough love being passed around.

Love. There's a true abundance of it in my own life. Indeed, love overflow-eth for most of the people I know. That's not exactly the problem. It feels more like we -- as a collective species -- are lacking a wider sense of love for one another, for the masses of people who aren't in our day to day lives.

It can be a lot to ask to foster love for total strangers because, you know, they're strange. Plus, there are some seriously idiotic, evil and smelly people out there. None of these things make you want to devote any love to them.

This notion of loving the unlovable is all well and good when conceptualizing, when discussing it with other like-minded people. But, it sure is a challenge to put it into an active practice. I certainly struggle spare any love for the likes of certain war mongering politicians, hideously awful "role-model" celebrities, or parents who can hardly figure out how to protect themselves let alone their own children.

See what I mean? It leaves me feeling sour just typing those words about people I don't know and don't really want to know.

And there it is: the people I don't really want to know.

I desperately want to find love for everyone -- friend, foe and otherwise -- in spite of whatever shortcomings they may have. But, most of the time, it's almost too hard to a little spare find love for myself in spite of my own unlovable shortcomings. Perhaps, herein lies our cultural problem: not enough love for ourselves. If we worked on loving ourselves and all we have to offer each other, would that make it easier to share our universal love? Would that make it easier to have sympathy for each other's struggles? Would that make a drop in the bucket?

Yes, people. The answer is YES.

I always suspected John Lennon knew exactly what he was talking about when he said, "Love is the Answer." It's no mistake that song is entitled Mind Games.

This holiday season I've altered my world peace wish mantra. From now on I'm going to wish for world peace through love for every single person I'll ever know and never will meet.