Happy holidays, whether it be Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or just the Winter Solstice that you celebrate. I hope it’s a great time of year for you.

For me personally I celebrate Christmas and a bunch of Birthdays during the month of December. During my childhood this was the most awesome tome of year. My relatives all got together and we played games, ate good food, and reveled in our togetherness. But as I grew older things have changed. We still celebrate the birthdays bit the world around me has lost its Christmas glow. We’re all in a dense blizzard with no Rudolph to guide us.

Its mid-December as I write this and I didn’t get my first “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” until the 10th. Businesses put up decorations and started their holiday sales, but the people seemed to have lost their spirit. Not even speaking from a religious standpoint. The spirit of Christmas is on its deathbed if not dead already. Even finding the old-school animated Christmas specials such as Frosty, Jack Frost, and Rudolph are all hard to find now. Granted we could find those on the web and amazon, it still would be nice to see these specials on the air.

The Christmas spirit has been sapped from the youth. A lot of kids don’t even know the names of Santa’s reindeer anymore. The only Frosty they know is $.99 at Wendy’s, and they are only concerned with getting the best toys and name brands. Now I know kids want toys, and that’s all fine and dandy. Its the adults that make it their mission to out do everyone by buying the most and flaunting it in the face of others. This behavior gets embedded in the minds of children and that’s their only concern. They now must show of their shiny new toys, and clown those who don’t have the same.

All material things aside, this world has honestly gone ape shit crazy. I don’t know if it’s because we as a species are losing our humanity in exchange for primal rage or if social media has made our madness more accessible to the world. Either way, no matter what your faith is, we could use a bit more religion in our lives. As a Christian aside from Easter this is like our Super bowl for faith. We use this time to come together and celebrate the time our God gave us his only Son who would later die for us and forgive us all our sins. It’s the greatest birthday celebration in our recorded history, yet all we see now is the steady increase in violence and danger in the world. A time where we are to celebrate the messiah of peace and love is filled with people feuding over material items. People trampling each other for black Friday sales. Stealing from each other just to sell the item to someone else no willing to work hard to earn enough to buy it legitimately. A time to honor a being that gave his life for all who have been born and yet to be born, yet we can’t even give our time to volunteer somewhere to help those less fortunate. Happy holidays right? Tis’ the season right? But we forgot the reason. Even if your aren’t a Christian, it’s a chance to spread togetherness amongst the human race. A chance to give to someone because it’s a nice thing to do, not to flaunt your socioeconomic status. A time not to expect someone to bend over backwards to give you something. Go out and love one another. Give a hug or a listening ear to someone. Order Rudolph the red noses reindeer off Amazon and sit down with your kids and teach them the names of the reindeer. This is a season of love and giving, not riots and over consumerism. Reclaim the Christmas spirit! Stores and corporations don’t control our hearts unless you let them. Love does not equal money spent. Gifts don’t fill voids between people. We as a people need to make Christmas a revered holiday again by putting meaning back into it.

Peace and love to all who read, happy holidays to those who celebrate this time of year, and good blessings even to those who don’t celebrate,

Poetic Ice