Ah Christmas once again! the time of year we are all called to be kinder for our fellow man and women and of course to remember the reason for the season the birth of Christ. As a Christian I must remember in the hustle and bustle of busy time that there is a reason I need to be joyous.
I know not everyone celebrates the birth of Jesus, as we live in a diverse world but I respect whatever you celebrate even it means a time to appreciate what one has in your life even if by the worlds standards you have little. If you have life, health and hopefully a place to live then you have much to be thankful for. If you have life but no place to live remember you are loved and pray in time your situation will improve.
Living in Los Angeles area Homeless is at a crisis for many who live on the streets, in their cars , fellow man , women and children who may be your co-workers and friends who may be homeless that you have no idea what struggles they go through, that is where be kind comes from.
Christmas for many is not celebrated as the birth of Jesus but many feel its a time to give, party, live in the moment, spend money on gifts, eat to your hearts content. My view is Christmas is not about gifts or what one gets because deep down those gifts have no real value and the so often the feel of happiness lasts only a moment and then those things are stuffed in a drawer, thrown in the trash or just forgotten about.
Christmas to me is a very hard holiday to begin with due to my mother passing away four years ago Dec 9th. My mother who didn’t have much money did her best to make sure my sister and I had a decent Christmas with gifts and good food. The company was not always great because of my grandfather I will refer to as the Devil. For much of my youth holidays were filled with arguing over the sacrifice of living with him and him caring for us, opposite of what a grandfather is in very sense.
Sad I think I blocked out most of my Christmases not even remember what I have gotten in those years, I guess that’s a lot to do with my depression over the years and just not feeling like celebrating and honestly for much of my young twenties I was single and felt alone.
I do remember fond memories of seeing my grandmother for holidays who loved us dearly, but she passed at a young age of 55, too young and my mother was 56.
I have always found Christmas to be a holiday that I Know is important next to Easter and as Christian I must remember during this time of year it can have both a positive and negative affect on people especially the need to purchase gifts. As a family man and with a young daughter I enjoy making sure these years are important not to repeat history of sad holidays. I don’t overboard with gifts like many parents do and that is because I buy my daughter things throughout the years and her birthday is over a week after Christmas.
These times can get very hard with all the responsibilities of bills, rent , food and the necessities but I am believer that these years with my wife and daughter I can never recover or make up so might as well make the best of it. Why be a scrooge even though I want to at times and it seems that those who are scrooges in life seem to have all the possessions they could dream of.
I do wish I could relive some of my favorite Christmas films like “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life and even “The family Man” films that all the characters to see the past , present and future and even get a glimpse of a different life if one didn’t exist or if one made different choices.
I would go back in time and maybe would life be like, as a man who has suffered with depression in the past sometimes I regretted living and felt that others would be better off without me. But if that was to happen my daughter would never exist and I would not be married.
Christmas tends to make many of us sentimental or hate the holidays due to our history, as there are others who have had horrible holidays with family, many who suffer through depression and even abuse something I know something about but others have more extreme examples.
I wanted these days to be remembered with Joy, but although I have my family I have struggled these many years especially with employment and money which wipes away good memories at times, even on the year my mother passed was one of the worst year to date.
Each year I tried to replace no memories or bad/sad memories with good memories. 2019 is my 40th Christmas on this earth, a milestone in itself and one I hope to remember in a positive way except this year I am unemployed looking for work but I will try not let that dampen my spirit.
The point of this is to remember the reason and even though we struggle in this life lets try to be happy especially with those in our life and remember that our life days are numbered, for we don’t know when our last day will be one this earth so lets make our days great!
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to everyone, have peace and joy! on to the new year!
Joseph’s Adventures in Writing 