What do we celebrate at Christmas when the religious message has lost its meaning? We can still celebrate family and how you can always count on people called family to love you and support you and protect you and care for you even as they make gentle fun of you for your flaws and weaknesses. The gatherings we remember, the gatherings we share this season, and the gatherings we look forward to in future years are a celebration of that family support and a visible sign that it is and will be.
We can exchange gifts and get together for luncheons or parties with friends who are almost as supportive and necessary to our lives as our own families. We can tell such people how much they mean to us under the guise of holiday greetings in words that would make them blush in a less emotional season.
We can celebrate the beauty of the nature of the season, the snow, the drops of water frozen into icicles, the evergreen greens, the branches of the bare trees, and the seeds and berries and pods that represent the potential for life that spans the cold and only-apparently barren winter.
We can celebrate the bounty that is ours that allows us to be safe and warm on such cold and blustery days of winter.
Even when religion has been sifted out for us, there is still plenty to celebrate and enjoy. May the holiday season bring you blessings of nature and of family and of friends.
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