Let there be a return to simple gifts

These are indeed the times that try men's and women's souls.

As we spend another year struggling to get out of the worst recession of several generations, it can be quite a challenge to find and to keep the spirit of the holiday season.

Our elected officials still seem at a loss to help us. They're either shouting at each other, or hiking taxes as we struggle to pay our bills, or both.

More of us in the suburbs are jobless, homeless and hungry. Yes, more of us may not have many or any presents under the tree.

The stress of all of that. The stress of trying to stretch and stretch and stretch to make a good Christmas for the kids or just survive might just get the better of us. Or consume the best of us.

Let's not let it. Let there be peace on earth this Christmas Day, and let it begin with us.

Let there be unbridled anticipation. Let there be, in our hearts and souls, a return to what seemed like the simpler times of our childhoods. Remember that giddy, sugar-buzz kind of rush you felt as a child on Christmas Eve? How you felt like you couldn't possibly sleep you were so excited about Santa Claus's coming? Remember that four-year-old awe when you saw he had eaten the cookies and drank the milk you'd left for him? Or the big-as-saucers look in your eyes when you spied the shiny Schwinn bike with the banana seat he'd really, really brought you after all? Or perhaps you're one of those who is old enough to remember when there was no Wii Fit, no Internet, no smart phones, not even four-channel television. Entertainment came from our imaginations. Hide-and-seek. Freeze tag. Cowboys or pirates. Bannisters doubled as horses and porches became ships filled with gold and other pretend treasure chests. Back then, the holiday ornaments were hand-painted-by-number wooden figures or sequins and ribbons pushed into Styrofoam balls. You did your shopping at the five and dime and spent only what was in your piggy bank.

Let there be a return to those good old days. Perhaps that return is one of the many things it seems we cannot control. Let there be acceptance of that which we cannot control. And yes, with that acceptance, let there be joy in the return to the simple things and the simple gifts.

A tree. A child. A glistening star. The quiet beauty in the dust of the new-fallen snow. A neighbor who brings over home-baked cookies. A night playing Scrabble with friends.

An hour of gratitude and quiet reflection in church.

The knowledge that things will get better. That there always is growth after loss. That love abounds. And miracles happen. Yes, let there be peace and love and hope this Christmas Day.

As those soulful Whos down in Whoville remind us each year, "Christmas Day will always be. Just so long as we have we... Welcome Christmas, while we stand, heart to heart and hand in hand."