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Celebrate Christmas

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Christmas season carries a connotation of exchanges that touch the heart... quality performances, if you will, of food, gifts, spiritual renewal and human love. However, the busy, even frantic context of our days works against this quality, this aspect that we want to give and receive. Two career households, single parent households, households in the grip of underemployment and/or crushing debt, a marketplace stocked with millions of gift options: how does one plan a Christmas to touch hearts?

I strive for a Christmas that is simple and pleasing to myself. This usually makes the season manageable and provides moments of real joy. I eliminate rituals that seem essential if I don't have the time or money perform them in a meaningful way. Office potlucks are the first to go.

On Thanksgiving, send special Christmas cards to special friends.

Light a fire: I enjoy a fireplace this time of year. in my current location, that means an electric 'woodstove' by Electro log.

A Christmas creche: I learned proper crech arrangement from my oldest daughter when she was six. First Jesus, mom and dad in the back corner. Then shorter shepherds, musicians, and animals as close to the cradle as possible with noses pointed at the Babe. Then horses, camels, and Wise Men: cram them in there, they are all trying to see. When you are done, the barn is very full... and that's how it Really looked ...

Cookies: I make cookies to ship to far-flung family.

• Spicy Fruitcake cookies.

Music:

• Arabic Christmas Carol: " A voice from the unheard voices of the Christians of the Middle East who have been witnessing to faith in the Saviour since His incarnation in their midst."

Poetry:

• No need to get sappy! Read A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. "And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said: 'Would you like anything to read?'"

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