Christmas, for me, is a challenge.\u00a0 And I mean that in a good way.<\/p>\n
And I don’t just mean in a theological way – although Easter is the real existential throw-down, Christmas issues challenges to the believer as well.<\/p>\n
But for me, the challenge is to both feel and exhibit the spirit of Christmas – really, the plural spirits<\/em> of Christmas, sacred and social and secular.\u00a0 And I’m not pollyanna enough not to know that the pressure is there; theologically, the believer wants the season to be a revelation to him\/her and the whole family; socially, the pressure is on to be happy, dammit<\/em>.\u00a0 For many, the holidays dredge up iffy-to-terrible family memories – I’m lucky that way.\u00a0 For people with families, the pressure is there to make sure the kids have a memorable time, one that they’ll remember fondly to their own kids, and grandkids, long after we’re gone.\u00a0 And the idea of failing on any of those fronts –\u00a0<\/em>wallowing in childhood angst, feeling stressed and depressed, worrying about the memories you’re leaving your kids – is enough to shave a couple of inches off the top of any holiday joy you\u00a0might be trying to feel.<\/p>\n It was years ago, surrounded in holiday-time angst and years before I ever heard Dennis Prager do his “Happiness Hour”, that I decided “Bullshit”.\u00a0 No matter what the financial stress or personal turmoil, I was going to enjoy<\/em> Christmas, first and foremost, period, end of sentence.\u00a0 I would put aside whatever angst befell me, and just focus on what mattered; the two vexing-but-wonderful kids that God blessed me with, my extended family, the great blessings I have in my life, and above all the birth of Christ.<\/p>\n And so too this year.\u00a0 The vexations are there; teenagers, mortgage sweats, the onset of a busy, busy year.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the blessings outweigh them logarithmically.\u00a0 And there is so <\/em>much to be happy about.<\/p>\n So from Bun, Zam, Clu, Nosemarie, Candy and I, may you have a blessed Christmas season.\u00a0 If you’re one of my Christian readers, God bless.\u00a0 If you believe in something else, please accept a big Care package of goodwill, care of the Savior I’m celebrating.\u00a0 If you believe in nothing, well – have a good couple of days off.\u00a0 You deserve it too.<\/p>\n If you’re one of my readers serving this country this Christmas, especially overseas, please accept my sincere thanks and the hopes that the New Year will see you home, safe, with your various missions a lot <\/em>closer to accomplished.\u00a0<\/p>\n And thank you all for another great year on this blog.\u00a0 Having an audience for my little musings, ponderings and rantings is a gift every single day.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christmas, for me, is a challenge.\u00a0 And I mean that in a good way. And I don’t just mean in a theological way – although Easter is the real existential throw-down, Christmas issues challenges to the believer as well. But for me, the challenge is to both feel and exhibit the spirit of Christmas – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}