Friday, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Every year I make sure to watch the Christmas classics, including It’s A Wonderful Life, White Christmas and, of course, one of my favorites Miracle on 34th Street. The latter is a great classic set in the frantic midst of the City during the holiday shopping madness. Aside from the warm familiarity of the scenes I know well as a New Yorker, it is a valuable reminder that amid the stress and frantic pace of the holidays, we find it so difficult to keep our focus on the season’s themes.

During the holidays, in whatever tradition you call your own, the themes certainly do not emphasize shopping, material gestures of gifts and money. Every tradition reminds us that we are spiritual creatures who thrive when we live with the optimism of faith.

These holidays are a time to break from the rigors of our work to reflect on larger, existential matters. And really, other than some few hours spent in a religious service, how much of our holiday time is actually devoted to such personal reflection? For most of us, too little. Our energies are directed toward malls, credit cards and the worry of debt we are accruing in order to show the people we love that we really mean that we love them. The reason the great Christmas films continue to resonate for more than a half century is that they call us to listen to the small voice calling us to human rest amidst the cacophony of human racing.

It is well documented that stress levels, from mild to severe, spike during this season. Therapists are busier than ever, depression and anxiety become more intense, and even suicides increase. Why? The venal themes of commerce call us to buy - in order to give - to the end of showing and feeling affection.

If I really loved you, I need to show it in concrete ways with what I purchase for you.
(Oh, and by the way, I expect the same gesture from you.)

Our material gestures have become so exaggerated that our gifts seem utterly disconnected to the idea of their token and symbolic meaning. Christmas now has the feeling of equating our feelings for each other with an economic value.

The gaudy excess of showering children on Christmas morning is an embarrassing scandal utterly distinct from the message of simplicity, redemption and human salvation.

Simple Kris Kringle, fighting off the intimation that he is mentally ill, is the soul of focus and faith. And he insists on maintaining the spirit of Christmas in the face of all the reason, sanity and cynicism of those around him, trying desperately to enjoy their lives. The lives that Santa Claus touches are just like our own. The crowds racing around the buy gestures of love reveals that even blessed lives often exist in emotional misery. But Santa’s fix is simplicity itself:

Faith, Hope & Love

Merry Christmas!