The Christmas Spirit

FTLComm - Winnipeg - December 25, 2000

Christmas is not shopping, Christmas is not stupid songs about reindeer and snowmen, it is about a genuine feeling, that fills and colours the wonder of life all around us. Each person in each of our own ways has either found or will find what Scrooge found and that was a way to "keep Christmas". Though a pagan tradition adopted by the Christians of the dark ages, Christmas is both a spiritual and emotional event that transcends labels and lurks deep in the inner sanctum of human nature. That

intense desire and simple

ability to see and feel good about things, to share with one another and help others come to that positive realisation. Writers and poets refer to the "warmth" of Christmas and today's picture of a log made of saw dust and wax burning in its esthetic and consumer oriented world, even though it is contrived and a fake is every bit as warm as any flame and is a match to the feelings inside each of us. No matter how those feelings get their, no matter the intent it is the ability of us all to reach this state and in our own wonderful way, "keep Christmas." The part of Winnipeg that we have been travelling through this past day is not adorned with the magnificent lights and displays that we see in the rural communities of Saskatchewan but even here there are though who do their duty to share the Christmas spirit with those who pass by. The two houses in the lower picture are some wartime houses overlooking a park and are the only two on their block lit up and as if by some mysterious cloning process, there is not one shining house but two, in another year will there be three or more? If not will it matter? The beauty, the sharing and the spirit are appreciated, it is the eve of Christmas, be of good cheer.