Oh, there are many kinds of Christmases, as we all very well
know. There are the Dickens Christmases,
the cruise Christmases, the New England Christmases, the Western Christmases
with sleighs, the New York Christmases with fabulous store windows and Radio
City. There are the religious
Christmases with nativity scenes and choirs singing Handel’s Halleluiah
Chorus. And all the Christmases past
that exist only in memory and perhaps never existed in any other way except our
dreams.
And the shopping, oh, the shopping. The fabulous German Christmas markets.
And some of us celebrate the Winter Solstice with Chinese
food, or cruises or choose not to acknowledge the event at all, whether they
call it Christmas or Hanukah or Quanza or any other name.
But at the heart of it all, there is still a deep and human need for us to gather
together, to drink and nibble, to hear the songs of the season, to light
twinkling lights and candles to keep away the dark, to try to remember those in
desperation because of the storms of life.
Our ways of celebration may have changed over the millennia, but our
human needs have not.
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