what is the spirit of christmas?

[Dancing Bear]

This Year is also hard for us.. My Gran was very very sick this time last year.. passing away just after christmas.
This year we wont be home. We will be interstate visiting relatives we haven't seen in over 10 years.. So i am hoping that in light of where we will be and trying to reunite ourselves with family we don't have a lot to do with normally.
That we wont be too sad with the memory of losing my favourite person in the world.. and my favourite pet in the world.. It is our first christmas without them both.
Its not going to be easy..

Also every year in my little family we celebrate Yule.. we have a little ceremony we perform Christmas eve..we make our christmas lunch with all that we have harvested from our little vege patch.. and light a candle every christmas morning..for all of our passed over relatives..Bringing them all closer to help celebrate the unity and to help us remember those who have been here before us.
Its going to be hard to do , when we are in someone else house. in whom i know are not overly spiritual nor too understanding..and its all about who bought the biggest present.
I do hope they have changed a little in 10 years..
I will be taking my singing bowl and candles to still continue our tradition and I may have to Buy a Yule cake , instead of make it this year. and looked upon with that familiar look I have got use to over the years.. I think it says crackpot LOL!!
Somehow someway we will try to keep our own traditions going.

To be honest i am not really looking forwards to christmas this year..
I would rather be in my own home remembering my Gran and our much loved Pet Bruin.. He just loved christmas, ripping open his presents..
and able to light a candle for her and him , do our traditional ceremonies celebrating Yule without the bollocks.

I am sorry for your loss Holmes..
and i am glad you will have friends and family to share this year with..
Have a wonderful day!!

 

[HOLMES]

hail dancing bear

as the new year is upon us dancing i thought about you and all the guys an gals who had a hard time at christmas. I was talking to a teenager last night who had grandma pass away last january and her mother figure the year before. i said to her last night "no one knows your pain" which is true as when it comes to such pain i think it is unique and personal.
as anyone who goes through such pain knows that we experience it for ourselves it feels like it is just us in the world.

this christmas was a lot easier for me then last year as my mom and i commented that last christmas was a blur, and i have a tradition of sitting there and watching christmas movies but this year as my friend had his kids down which he don't tto get see for some years i went over there christmas eve and we sang karokee on my ps3 and they were still wanting to go so i borrowed it to them to 11 then they asked again so i borrowed it to noon the next day (my ps3 is my precious ).
so we ended up watching it's a wonderful life in the morning on christmas eve.. it was good to be flexible with our traditions.

i think that is one of the hidden messages of christmas, that within its spirit is that the spirit of our dear ones would not want us to sit there and cry and mourn and let the day pass us by,, but instead keep on living for the good times and know that they with us.
i know my bro preston spirit enjoyed us watching exchanging gifts and having a good time.

so with the spirit of the new years,, i say to next year and may it be merry for all who celebrate it,.

 

[HOLMES]

ah yes

it is now 2012,, 7 years since I started this thread and we had some interesting discussions.

christmas for many this year will be about tradegies and recovering from those times of darkness.. and possibly for some they shall not be able to recover for a long time.
one thing about this time is that more then ever love is needed to help our fellow brothers/sisters out in life..
that it is a time of brotherhood or should be.

as i watch the christmas carol the hard times of those days are still with us, perhaps more so as we are in a recessions and fighting to avoid a depression that spirit of christmas needs to be shared..

one thing about christmas as it exists is that yes for lots of people a savoiur was born, that the creator so loved the world he sent his son to be with us, to teach us about love.
though all of us are sons of men, are we not also the creation of the creator.
for me i am taking that teaching of ultimate love and trying to incorporate it into the family. perhaps one thing that has beeng oing on for me is the quote from miracle on 34th street "it is more then a day,, it is a frame of mind" and also a frame of the heart.

every day i sit there and wonder about the poor, the needy, and the spirit of ourselves must go on,, as christmas is an ideal for us to strive for in the summer, and when we are low.

of course the spirit of it is differnt for you this year or still the same,, some of the things we share would be the same and some will be unique..
as long as there is christmas .. (the song comes to mind).

one thing i was inspired tonight was the peace of world war one where for that one night there was no fighting but singing, at that one area of the war.
and seen it reflected in that old song snoopy christmas vs the red baron .

 

[mingbop]

It's a pity Holmes that christmas this year sees most of the poor worse off than last year and many more people in poverty and hard times. Things are going backwards and that's not good.

 

[HOLMES]

hail guys

it is now 2013, eh.

I heard about Asherah, and wondered why it was phrased out but more importantly if she will make a bigger return in the consciousness,, we already got mother mary or the virgin mary though they are not the same..
if mary is the queen of heaven,, perhaps mary was asherah come back for that purpose.

however as I think about Christmas I bet in the next 50 years we will have a return to femine energy not sure how though.

I know Christmas is sure for families with mothers and wives,, full of motherly energy.
I know I love my mom and she wants me home every Christmas.

so the spirit of Christmas besides being peace, and family,, I thought when I was a teenager jesus would come back as a woman which if he did that,, she would be about 11 or 12 by now.
of course now it is 2013 there was no big star in the sky eheh.

I think Christmas though will change as it has over the past 50 years though it remains the same for many,, example is cooking turkey with rice for stuffing as a person didn't have any bread for stuffing so it became a tradition.

kind of like that story where the person cut the edge of the meat,, and their partner asked why so they asked person mom,, who didn't know why so they asked their grandma,, finally to great grandma,, who said the pan wasn't big enough that they had to cut the edges off the meat to make it fit.

as I thought about this thread the last couple of days,, I guess a call back to the Christ in Christmas,, whatever it means for each person spirit is in order for those who celebrate it.

 

[HOLMES]

It is now 2016

It is a differnt christmas that is for sure. My family is seperated by various reasons, tradegy , illness, yet we endevoured to carry on such as it is. The young ones are more or less all grown up so the little things like children tv shows no longer have their magic. I got a free ride 4 hours to see my family of my and my neice. The nephews are elsewhere , which is an other reason for circumstances for a seperation this year. I believe they band together and cook a rurkey so they can eat.

A lot of losses happened, in fact yestday i came a funeral.

So moving past the traditions,to get to the idea of sharing the milk of human kindness and the cup of sorrow when no words will do . Still the ultimate is love and perhaps the creator love is parmount in these hard time, we can still say merry christmas with meaning. Merry christmas

 

[nicky]

IMO the spirit of Christmas is an idealized concept of love and peace that multitudes of people give lip service to the month of December who could care less about the rest of the world the other 11 months of the year. Utter bullshit.