Whew–the presents and parties are over, the cooking (except for some cookies yet to come) a memory.
Merry post-Christmas, friends. This is the best of times, not the worst of times. Best because the exhausting hubbub is over. Everyone liked the presents we gave them (or at least claimed they did.) Whew. And I really liked getting presents myself!
What we want is to love and know we are loved and to imagine a world that lives up to the purity of that feeling.
Thus today’s Christmas editorial in the NYT. So undeniably true that it’s pretty generic.
A different article spoke to my Christmas spirit, about a once-rural church that no longer wants to be called Hog Mountain Baptist. “Hamilton Mill”, the name of a nearby suburb, sounds better to them.
Yes, I celebrate Christmas now with presents and parties and family and cooking and more talk of winter solstice than of religious solace. But in offering my chosen a la carte Christmas to family, in a sense I’m re-naming my childhood’s Hog Mountain as “Hamilton Mill.”