Tag Archives: Christmas spirit

Keeping Your Christmas Spirit — Even Now

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“Keep Christmas with you… all through the year.” Good song. Good thought. Good spirit.

After a months-long, multi-million dollar buildup to the climax on Christmas day, December 26 kills it stone-cold dead. No more carols, no more commercials and sale fliers, no more sales, no more hopes or expectations. Hunt in vain for Christmas specials on TV. The lights and decorations go back in the box. The tree goes out by the street for pickup. I’m getting depressed just thinking about it.

This year we had our own “drag” on the spirit of Christmas… both before and after. Christmas was on Saturday, and on the Sunday just before, my wife’s sister died unexpectedly in Colorado. Sixty-seven years old.

We still had Christmas. We still enjoyed it. We watched the movies, she knitted baby hats. We gave gifts, and had a good Christmas morning with our younger son, and spoke to the rest of the family by phone.

I hope your letdown is not so severe. But we kept Christmas going, and we’re STILL keeping it going. Here’s some ideas so you can too.

PLAN to take down your tree. Make it a de-decorating party. Play the music, enjoy reminiscing about the ornaments again, have hot chocolate. Packing things away can be part of your Christmas. When I told my mother about this, she said, “That’s so much better than my system, which is to scream at people until it gets done.”

When our kids were young in Pennsylvania we drove quite a few miles each year to drop off our tree at Nockamixon State Park, which chipped them for use on park paths. Some folks load their tree with bird or squirrel goodies, and put it out in the yard.

International “Christmas” holidays ramble on for another couple of weeks. You might not get much out of Boxing Day, or St. Stephens Day, or the martyrdom of St. Thomas à Becket. But we used to invite friends to an annual Twelfth Night/Epiphany party. We’d play the Christmas music one more time, serve festive foods, and have a good relaxed time enjoying, and saying goodbye to, the holiday.

Thanks to the magic of CDs, DVDs, MP3s, streaming services, and more, you can enjoy the music and the movies for as long as you like. Did you miss a favorite Christmas movie? Watch it now! If anybody else thinks it’s goofy, fine. They can go home and watch “Judgement at Nuremburg.” You’re entitled to watch, and listen to, whatever you want, and do it WHEN you want. Your pleasure isn’t chained to the calendar.

It’s still the season of giving. Just as retail business (even grocery stores, believe it or not) go down for a month or so after Christmas, so do donations, including blood donations. But the needs are even higher at this time when the weather often gets dangerous. So, think about whom YOU’D like to support a little extra “at this festive season.” Just a few days ago we mailed checks to Finger Lakes SPCA and Food Bank of the Southern Tier, not to mention our church. Give in the spirit of Christmas, and you can extend your Christmas. All through the year.

Finding the Christmas Spirit

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Christmas is comin’! Do you feel the Christmas spirit?

Quite possibly the answer is no… or not quite… or not yet. You may be struggling to find it, and feeling that it just doesn’t seem to come this year.

Have you thought about MAKING it come? We often feel that things like this ought to happen spontaneously, but in fact hardly ANYTHING happens that way. People DECIDE to stir up a mob, and other people DECIDE to join in. There’s nothing spontaneous about it.

On a cheerier note, you can DECIDE to bring the Christmas spirit into your life. We try each year to do something different for Christmas. Last year we took a chilly December Saturday to wander along Owego’s Riverrow. The street, the bridge, and surrounding neighborhoods are decked out enthusiastically. We wandered into a few stores (with masks!), ordered and ate lunch (at an outside table!). We just enjoyed sharing Owego’s Christmas.

This year we went in the opposite direction from Bath, to the snowy Rochester Public Market, where we rambled around the stalls, enjoying the music and the decorations.

We also have traditional things we do just about every year. Yesterday we visited Rockwell Museum to see this year’s entries in the Gingerbread Invitational – with such creations as “Gourdlandia”… a 3-D Corning montage… Watkins Glen… Taughannock Falls… a bears’ picnic. Tuscarora School children envisioned themselves having class in a railroad car.

Afterward you can see the rest of the museum! You can also stroll Corning’s Market Street, noting that silver seems to be a theme color this year, just as giant Christmas bulbs are common. Only one place has three life-size reindeer, though. See how long it takes you to spot them!

Besides Corning and Owego, Canandaigua (LONG Main Street) and Penn Yan (short Main Street) are places that can give you their own infusion of Christmas. So can gaslight-lit Wellsboro, in nearby Pennsylvania.

Sometime this week we expect to drive around Bath after sunset, enjoying the many illuminations, and the lovely star that shines down on the village from Mossy Bank. Another “regular” event, which we’ll probably do this weekend, is visit the holiday miniatures show at the National Soaring Museum. (Old-timers will recall that this exhibit of dollhouses, toys, and models used to be at CURTISS Museum.)

Be prepared to pivot, and capitalize on the unexpected! One year Joyce was in Sayre Hospital for several December days, with unexpected heart trouble, but we all appreciated the carol singers.

You’re reasonably in charge of what you read, and what you watch, and what you listen to. Maybe you have a favorite Christmas movie: The Bishop’s Wife; The Preacher’s Wife; It Happened on Fifth Avenue; Love Actually; A Christmas Carol; Santa Claus Conquers the Martians! You’re not out to impress anybody. Put in a disc, call up a screening service, catch a broadcast – sit down and give yourself permission to ENJOY yourself.

You can also give yourself permission to skip something. Honest. “But it wouldn’t be Christmas without…!” Well, actually it would. If doing it’s going to burden you, instead of letting you enjoy the season – skip it. If you want to bake cookies, great. You can also buy them. And you should, rather than beat yourself down, or make life miserable for those around you. Forgive yourself. However you feel about Christmas or religion, the holiday clearly has SOME connection to Jesus. He talked a lot about forgiveness. Go ahead and forgive yourself. And enjoy the days.