So this is Christmas.
By now, your tree should be decorated, stockings stuffed, presents bought/made/re-gifted and turkey or tofurkey gently defrosting in the kitchen. Tomorrow is the Big Day.
Every year, there is much debate about the meaning of Christmas.
Heck, some of us even wrestle with the use of the very word. Do we say Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings or Happy Holidays? It's an endless exchange over every social and news medium from Twitter to the (insert name of large city here) Times about how Christmas is and should be celebrated.
Christians remind us that Christmas is the annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, with associated rituals and beliefs.
And they have the Bible, history and Wikipedia on their side.
Meanwhile, non-Christians coop the day as an opportunity to rejoice and reflect on the year, and maybe have a nice dinner.
Still others see Christmas as a couple of extra days off work and a chance to catch up with friends and family.
If you're a kid, Christmas is that wonderful season when your parents take you to the mall and you tell some chubby old guy in a red suit what you want and it magically appears wrapped and ready for you on Christmas morning.
To me, Christmas is all of the above and more. It's that wonderfully inclusive holiday celebration that miraculously brings about spontaneous acts of kindness and generosity among people and inspires feelings of hope, warmth and joy. Every day should be so blessed.
Growing up, we didn't observe the religious meaning of Christmas, although my family still reveled in its customs by putting up a tree, decorating the house, exchanging gifts and stuffing ourselves with roast turkey, which we chased a few hours later with turkey sandwiches and a nap before bed.
I remember stockings stuffed with mandarin oranges (my parents may have missed the mark on that one) and presents that seemed to go on forever - or maybe it just seemed that way since we had to preserve the wrapping paper for next year and consequently it always took us a long time to open them.
There were toys and games, clothes and makeup, books, perfume, bicycle accessories, jewelry and genuine vinyl records.
In the days leading up to and following Christmas, the house was full of baked goods: my mom's special nuts and bolts snack mix, Nanaimo bars, cherry squares, shortbread cookies, caramel corn, fruit cake and - the year we got our first microwave oven - mountains of microwave peanut brittle.
Today, Christmas is different but it's still special, and in fact I'm downing some of my mom's nuts and bolts as I write this. But for many people in our community, Christmas is a struggle. The reasons vary from economic challenges to personal loss and loneliness.
We're lucky in South Delta to have organizations like Deltassist, the Delta Hospice Society, the Delta Society for Community Living, the Kiwanis Club of Ladner and Tsawwassen and the McKee House Seniors' Society, among others, to provide help and guidance to people who may be suffering at Christmas. Surviving on donations and volunteers, these groups perform miracles every day of the year.
To them, and to you, a very Merry Christmas.
