Best
of Spirits
The holiday spirit is about warmth and welcome, about giving and
caring, about love and family. This is the season for big hugs and
happy tears, for holding hands and candlelight services, for wishing
the best to everyone, everywhere. It is women doing what they always
do, just bigger, brighter and more magnificently.
Across the nation, women are preparing dinners, keeping the peace,
making lists and checking them many more times than twice. Women are
keeping the traditions, saving the family recipes, remembering the
holiday rituals. Mothers and daughters and sisters and grandmothers
are all women on a mission -for the perfect gift, the perfect dinner,
the perfect homecoming.
The table must be set with care, the best of everything we have,
whatever that might be. We offer our best and pray it is enough to
heal the bruises and disappointments of the other 364 days.
We deck the halls, the house, the porch, the yard. We decorate the
world to reflect all the bright shiny feelings inside. For this brief
time, sad and scary things are tucked into boxes and wrapped in shimmering
colored paper, contained, concealed, out of sight, out of mind. The
brightness of the holidays makes it easier to face the dark.
It is a time to make the wishes and dreams of those we love come
true, even if only in a small way. Professionalism and objectivity
aren’t at all proper for Christmas. This is a season of extravagance,
a time for unleashed enthusiasm, a day to embrace writer Robert Heinlein’s
formula for life, “Excess in all things – Moderation is
for monks!” Christmas is the day to let the abiding love for
our friends and families overflow. And, to believe our enduring hope
for their happiness will be fulfilled.
It is a season for believing, a season to lay down skepticism and
cynicism. The joy of Christmas is the return on a year’s investment.
It is the culmination and composite of what women are everyday. Giving
and caring throughout the year seems to simply increase the capacity
to give and care when it is in season. Bells and reindeer bring Christmas
cheer, but love, friends and family are what make the season bright.
So, when women bring out their holiday best, it is very good indeed.
It has little to do with money and everything to do with love. We
may run short on cash, but never on compassion. Even during hard times,
when our hands are full and the cupboards empty, women reach out to
those with less. Abundant love makes any meal a feast. At the holiday
dinner, surrounded by or wishing for those we care about most, no
matter who sits at head of the table, at the heart of the table is
a woman. PL
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