Christmas is Forgiving (or is it for giving)

Talking to family can be an enlightening experience if you really listen to what they have to say. I spent most of the day yesterday with my aunt and she has a way of being very blunt with what she says. Mi Tia Terry is very much like my father. There is no sugar coating anything and she says what comes to mind when it comes to her mind.

We spent the afternoon together. I am walking with her on the streets of Mt. Vernon. She is doing her errands and I came along. I bought her lunch and we just talked. The subject of Christmas came up. The one thing I know is that most older people do not view Christmas as this joyous event like some of us do. As a matter of fact, I am not sure the last time I felt in the Holiday Spirit. She asked me if I thought Christmas was for kids.

I had to really ponder this. I really do not believe that Christmas is just for kids. While I think that we are trained to buy big gifts for children, the holiday season is much more that. Sure I can go into how we need to think about those who are less fortunate than us because we should be thinking about that all the time. As I am explaining this to her, she just says: “Christmas is for giving”. It made me stop for a moment. What I heard was, “Christmas is Forgiving”.

I am not sure why that struck a chord with me. I know that I have been reflecting on so much that has happened this year. Forgiveness has always been on my mind. Not just the forgiveness of others but the forgiveness of myself. I also know that my aunt has other demons that she is dealing with. Family is never easy thing to handle and sometimes people rather go their separate ways than to maintain the family bond. While people take sides, no one ever realizes what that type of situation does to individual members of a family.

Maybe Christmas is Forgiving. The whole idea of this holiday was to think about and celebrate the birth of Christ. The one big lesson that he has tried to instill was the that we need to have that power to forgive. I think that people confuse forgiving with forgetting or perhaps in order to forgive you need to forget. I highly doubt that anyone of us can ever forget something that someone has been done to us.

I dunno. I am no prophet. I am no angel. I have done things that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. But, I can say that the holidays seem to give us all this power to do things we would not normally do. We begin to miss those that have been absent from our lives….and even if you missed them before, you miss them more because, it is Christmas. The only bad thing about this holiday season is that is has to end. When January 1st rolls around and all the cocquito has been drank, we all return to the norm. We begin to remember our divisions.

The holidays are tough on many of us. It makes those who are lonely feel even more alone. So Christmas is very much for giving too. Time is a gift that is cheap and comes back to us. I will try to spend this holiday with as much family as I can. I will try to laugh as hard and eat as much (only run it off later) as I can.

Mi Tia is very wise and while I know that what she was talking about one thing, I took it to mean something else. I told myself that I will make sure that she is not alone this holiday and thus, I will not be alone.