It is Christmas 2021, and it feels different this year. Lonelier – probably because for the second year in a row there’s been far less socializing. But it also feels a bit more resilient and sturdy in spirit – probably because for the second year in a row we’ve had to make it so.
Christmas is more than a special season and special day. It and its eve have always been not just my favorite holidays, but also my favorite days. Period.
I believe that’s true for many of us, whether we call it Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan or something else. It’s in our hearts and in our spirits. It is us and we are it. It is that one time a year when most of us give in to sentimental memory and an awesome faith that there really is or will be peace on Earth. Somewhere. Some day – if we have the determination to make it so.
Sure, we often get caught up in the retail glitz, but that’s another thing different about the second consecutive year of less socializing and less shopping anywhere but on a computer screen: It seems more real than ever that the best gift always is our lives and the lives of those we love.
With 5.3 million lives (that we know of) snuffed out by the COVID-19 pandemic around the globe – more than 812,000 in the U.S. alone – suffice it to say: All we want for Christmas is for you to get a shot.