December Sketchbook: Christmas is Where You Make It

The holidays are supposed to be a time of thanks for all we've received and a time of hope for what the future will bring, In spite of his unfortunate circumstances, this resident of our Christmas Village has still gone out of his way to publicly demonstrate his holiday cheer.

It saddens me when I hear people expressing the idea of the holiday in dollar signs. You don't have to be rich to be happy, and you don't have to live in a mansion of gold to be thankful. Happiness and contentment come from within. I think Dr. Seuss hit the mark pretty well in his book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

In the tale, a mean, unhappy creature called the Grinch despises the contented little people of Whoville and their bright, noisy Christmas, so he makes up his mind to "steal Christmas" so that he doesn't have to listen to it any more. He goes through a lot of trouble to steal every last thing he can find that's even remotely associated with the holiday, and then he takes it all up to the top of the mountain to dump it. While he's up there, the sun comes up. It's Christmas Day, and the gleeful Grinch decides to stop and gloat as the residents of Whoville awaken to discover that they've been robbed of Christmas...

"Poh-poh to the Whos!" he was grinchly humming.
"They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming!
They're just waking up - I know just what they'll do.
Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,
then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry boo-hoo!
That's a sound," grinned the Grinch, "that I simply must hear!"
Then he paused, and the Grinch put a hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low, then it started to grow.
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing - without any presents at all.
He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming - it came.
Somehow or other, it came just the same.
And the Grinch with his grinch feet ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling. "How could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes, or bags."
He puzzled and puzzed till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before -
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more...

So whether you're Atheist, Agnostic, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Wiccan, Mormon, or even a Who from Whoville, Christmas is not about presents, or food, or vacations, or Santa Claus, or any of that. The holidays are about kindness and compassion for your fellow beings on this planet, no matter "Who" they are.

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