With all the horror that 2020 has provided I thought it would be extremely difficult to enjoy my annual ritual of watching my favorite holiday movies.\u00a0 Just to start it off correctly I watched both the 1951 and 1984 movie versions of \u201cA Christmas Carol.\u201d\u00a0 Surprisingly, I enjoyed them even more than I did last year under much less trying circumstances.\u00a0 The scenes with Scrooge after his repentance are exactly what I needed to start enjoying the holidays the way I like to.\u00a0 Surrounded by the squalor of the election fraud and the forced isolation of the COVID overreaction I needed to see scenes of joy and heartfelt emotion to wake my spirit up to the feelings of the season.<\/p>\n
Wherever we are, even those of us locked down in this sad sham of an epidemic, we have many friends and loved ones that we can reach by phone or e-mail or by sending a little gift with a card.\u00a0 Doing that will relieve some of the isolation and it will do a great deal of good for both the recipient and you.<\/p>\n
And even if you are completely alone, maybe you can make a special meal for yourself and read a good book or watch a pleasant movie and reminisce about better times and look forward to better times to come.\u00a0 Life ebbs and flows.\u00a0 There are bound to be highs and lows.\u00a0 This is a low point.\u00a0 It will improve.\u00a0 But letting Christmas pass without acknowledging it would make it even worse.\u00a0 And I\u2019m definitely not saying people should spend a lot of money or go through elaborate preparations for a party that no one will be attending.\u00a0 Far from it.\u00a0 One of few advantages that the present situation provides us is extra time for reflection.<\/p>\n
We all rush through life without considering if we\u2019re missing the bigger point.\u00a0 Children grow quickly and people age without us realizing it.\u00a0 We drift in and out of the lives of friends and then we\u2019re left standing at a funeral wondering what happened to the time.\u00a0 There\u2019s definitely room for re-ordering priorities and reaching out to those we\u2019ve lost track of.<\/p>\n
When the world is going to hell in a handbasket is probably the best time to get your own life into better shape.\u00a0 And the natural time to do that is at the end of the year.\u00a0 Christmas and New Year are the perfect time to reflect and not just on the negatives.\u00a0 Even those of us going through extremely hard times can take some solace from memories of the better times.\u00a0 Those good things were real and we did enjoy them.\u00a0 Remembering that joy can get you through some tough days.\u00a0 Reliving it with someone who was also there makes it even better.<\/p>\n
I come from a large family that truly relishes dark humor.\u00a0 We reminisce about the most awful circumstances that we lived through together.\u00a0 But this year I\u2019ll look to remind them of some of the happier things that came with growing up in a large family.\u00a0 If nothing else we can celebrate that we\u2019ve beaten the odds and are all still alive and relatively healthy.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve got kids and grandkids too.\u00a0 None of us is starving and there isn\u2019t even a really strong feud going on in the sibling group which is pretty remarkable for us.\u00a0 We won\u2019t be getting together for Christmas which will break a decades long tradition.\u00a0 But we can have a video conference and we can exchange presents and greetings.\u00a0 That will help.<\/p>\n
So, this is long enough.\u00a0 My advice to everyone out there is don\u2019t let the bastards get you down.\u00a0 Make an effort to revive your Christmas spirit and I\u2019ll bet it will be well worth your effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With all the horror that 2020 has provided I thought it would be extremely difficult to enjoy my annual ritual of watching my favorite holiday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,818],"tags":[1455,1011,94,612],"class_list":["post-12784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-ocf","tag-1455","tag-a-christmas-carol","tag-christmas","tag-merry-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\n