I can’t seem to get into Christmas this year.
Come to think of it, I felt this way last year, too.
And, then it happened. It snuck up on me.
The normal seasonal activities just don’t seem to tip the scale for me anymore. Their magic doesn’t work. Am I just getting old and cynical or does the over-the-topness of it all now just bury the truly energizing substance of it?
Maybe, though, it isn’t really just me? Maybe it’s the consumption and marketing orientation of it all that sucks the life out of its meaning. Never-ending power ballads (even on the best of the season’s songs), in the end, seem to make one just more tired than inspired.
There is a certain poverty about the core message of Christmas that makes part of its dimensionality so rich. But, that seems to be the very part of it that is overcome by the glitz and tinsel of which it has become.
Sometimes I wonder if I really can blame it fully on external factors, though. I feel a niggling of something telling me that it is more about something internal than simply external forces. Should that be possible, I wonder about what factors I'm working with (or not) that essentially dim my awareness of things, including the real essence of what is involved in things like Christmas. To that end, identifying what I'm giving attention to seems helpful (if not wise).
Either way, I will likely still try to see if the cookies, my favorite egg nog, or a late-night candle while listening to a favorite carol will do the trick. More than once, though, I've discovered that what I really need has been sitting beside me the whole time...waiting for me. In other words, it didn't move as much as I did. So, I've learned that I just need to direct my attention, be patient with such things, and wait for my encounter with the real spirit of it all.
Perhaps, it is this posture anyway that makes it work...whenever it does.
Besides attention and waiting, note other suggestions (at bottom)...here.
