As we open the 2012 Christmas season, Americans of every stripe are all but spiritually exhausted. Many are experiencing political fatigue, financial instability, grief for the victims of hurricane Sandy, and sadness at the specter of the continuing moral decline of the American public square, documented daily on American media outlets. A sense of anxiety and foreboding has wafted across our great nation.
This Christmas season, We The People are in particular need of an extra large dose of Christmas cheer. We, the Christian majority, do indeed have reasons for optimism. We have reasons for merriment. Our traditional Christian winter rituals of Thanksgiving, Christmas Advent and the celebration of the New Year; are a string of festivals designed to annually spread happiness and joy. The highlight of which is the ushering in the Christmas Spirit – which is a holy aura that emanates from our collective heart-felt celebrations of the birth of Our Dear Lord, Jesus Christ.
“Joy to the World, the Lord Is Come!” If this Advent season each of us would be especially mindful to embrace the joy embodied in every act of Christmas, and to foster spreading the Spirit of Christmas, we will create the perfect antidote to our national doldrums. Every one of us should remind ourselves that we place our faith in the almighty, omnipotent, everlasting God and Creator of the Universe. He is the living God who is the author of our salvation, the source of our hope and the deliverer of our dreams. These contemplations will generate gratefulness in our hearts; and they will well up in each of us a reservoir of good-will and “glad tidings” that will inadvertently spill over into the lives of others. A Merry Christmas for all of us, resides within each of us.
For those of us who are mindful this Advent season, every “Merry Christmas” uttered in our presence will be particularly pleasing to our ears. Each “Merry Christmas” we personally utter will have added resonance and sincerity. This year, when we place a higher value on our Christmas experiences, our hearts will embrace and cherish the sights, sounds and familiar smells of our Christmas traditions:
the sounds of Christmas carols
the sweet sight of children acting out their Nativity plays
the wonderful smells of delicacies being prepared for Christmas gatherings
the sight of this year’s Christmas cards carefully displayed for all to see
the awesome hush of Christmas Eve church service
the excitement that wrapped Christmas presents give
the sounds of laughter that happy hearts make.
For those of us who turn away from “the troubles of the world,” and completely immerse ourselves in the splendor that this 2012 Holy Season offers, we will indeed receive the extra large dose of Christmas cheer we sorely need, and in the process become abundant dispensers of The Christmas Spirit, “…first at home, and then abroad.”
I, Brenda Verner – the Christian Christmas Lady, wish each and everyone a wonderful 2012 Advent, and encourage you to Christmas shop with Christian merchants.
Brenda J. Verner is a media analyst, a curator of popular culture artifacts, and a dynamic public speaker who has lectured at this nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities — Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Brown, MIT and University of Virginia, among scores of other institutions. She is known as The Christian Christmas Lady, and is the author of the book 101 Ways To Have A Christian Christmas.
The Christian Christmas Lady 