Christmas Every Day

When I was a little girl I read a story called "Christmas Every Day." It was about a child who liked Christmas so much she wished it was Christmas every day and miraculously, her wish comes true.

At first, it was absolute joy for everyone to have Christmas every day. Each day seemed special as it was filled with celebration, happiness and fun things. But as time wore on, people started running out of the good cheer and material things that made Christmas fun. It was a lot of work to keep up with all those things. And eventually, Christmas every day became a chore rather than a treasure.
It also reminds me of another story I read around the same time about children who wished to be in a world where they get to eat nothing but sweets-can't remember the name of that one, but it had kind of the same theme; too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. As you can imagine, the children in that story found themselves ravenously craving vegetables after awhile.

But what if a situation where mostly good things happened was a reality? We all experience the drudgery of life, and sometimes great suffering. And along the path of life there are dollops of good fortune, happiness and luck, dispersed in various levels in each of our lives. Though the world can seem like such a messy and tragic place due to some people refusing to see that everyone deserves respect and fairness. We are all at the mercy of the lens through which others see us. But, in reality, we should all filter our lenses through the emotion of compassion. Overnight, we would see a drastic change. Most people do hurtful things out of pain. Pain that is passed along from one person to another. Imagine if we all did one small kind thing every week, or instead of judging someone whose life has gone askew seemingly from their own decisions. How about instead we withhold judgment as we all have made mistakes. We know how great it feels to talk to a friend or someone who will listen to our problems without offering input, just listening.Someone is giving their time to hear our woes. It is a moment of compassion of just being heard.

So this is my recipe for maybe having a more Christmas every day: 1.Try to do a kind gesture for someone once a week, whether it's a compliment or whatever you can give. 2.Instead of judging, try putting yourself in someone else's shoes. 3. Give what you can, even if it's not money. The Hungersite and FreetheOcean are sites where you can give to charity with a click for free. Also Bing has an option to where you can give to charities with searches. I also like to sign petitions for animals and the environment. It may not seem like much, but if we all do something it can make a huge difference. I remember when I was in the 4th grade, way back in the seventies, we collected aluminum cans to cash in so we could use the money to buy a classroom math machine. Sometimes we even took a couple of field trips to collect cans. Sounds strange but it was super fun. And part of the fun was knowing we were doing something good. So it is also a step in the right direction to do what you can for the earth, whether it is growing a garden. planting wildflowers for honeybees, and recycling if that is an option.

Also taking a lonely neighbor a small Christmas gift is a nice gesture. One when we lived in a neighborhood where the neighbors were more friendly, I took my elderly nextdoor neighbor a poinsettia plant. He liked it and told the neighbors across the street. It resulted in a yearly gift exchange that went on between us, our nextdoor neighbor and the neighbors across the street for a couple of years. The gift would usually be left on our doorstep and it would be a pleasant surprise to discover it.

So steps toward Christmas every day would be goodwill to others, taking care of the environment and understanding instead of judgment. If we start making that the norm, we might have a chance of having the spirit of Christmas every day.