by Jeffrey Bell-Hanson

This is my sixty-second Christmas, if my birth certificate isn’t fake. I don’t remember the first few, but I have some vivid memories of lots of the rest. Each one is different, but the contrasts between this one and some of those early ones are astounding. As I think about that, it seems like an entirely different holiday now.

One constant is that it’s probably one of the most pleasant days of the year for me. I know that’s certainly not true for some people. There are lots of folks who suffer terribly during the holiday season, and Christmas day is perhaps one of their worst. I have never found it so. When I was young my parents and my big sister did everything they could to fill the day with warm, happy feelings even though, for the rest of the year, we were a pretty dysfunctional family in ways that I have only begun to understand. I suppose we all really needed this one day of “peace on earth,” at least within the walls of our house.

One contrast is that Christmas then seemed to be much more centered within the home; our home, anyway. Christmas now more often finds Karen and me out in the world—on buses, planes and in airports. Except for each other, the people to whom we say “Happy Holidays,” or “Merry Christmas” are strangers, people we have never seen before and will likely never see again. There’s a certain joy in engaging a wider world with a smile and a greeting in a way that one normally would not do. It may be fleeting; it may be made easier by the anonymity, but it’s genuine and sincere.

Another contrast is that the world into which we go on Christmas now seems so much bigger and more diverse than it did when I was a kid. The home within which we celebrated the holiday then was in a small, Midwestern town surrounded by cornfields. Being in a minority there meant not having a Dutch surname. (I’ll never forget all of the whispered conversations when a Catholic moved to town!)

Now we live thousands of miles away in a coastal area with people whose ancestors have come from all over the world, and who, at this time of year celebrate Christmas, or Hannukah, or Kwanza, or Festivus…or nothing at all. When I choose to say “Happy Holidays” to them, it’s an effort to share some of the warmth that I still carry with me from those early Christmases among the cornfields in a way that doesn’t presume that they share my tradition. If I choose, instead, to say “Merry Christmas, it’s with the hope that they will understand my best intentions to evoke my better nature, and perhaps theirs, in order to share a little light in a dark time of the year.

The more I think about it, perhaps Christmas really isn’t different now at all. Perhaps, with some degree of maturity, I simply understand that this time of year is framed by a different context for everyone. The world is no bigger or more diverse than it ever was; I am just much more out in it.

If there is any truth in the Christian tradition embedded in the greeting, “Merry Christmas,” it must be one that we can share in a wider world. If we truly believe in the love that we so often claim to be at the heart of the Christmas story, then that sharing will surely be characterized by warmth, openness and humility, not arrogance and distinction.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul said, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

So, Dear Readers, Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays—your choice. Either way, I wish for you today a mustard seed of the warmth and peace and love that has been shared with me on this day, sixty-two times. May it grow in all of us until it overtakes the rest of our days as well.