Dear reader(s),
The “etc.” includes the usual Christmas-adjacent holidays as well as the more general best wishes for the season, but I’m actually sticking mainly with the more traditional greeting here, which might surprise you. No, I haven’t had a religious awakening or anything like that. I’m just choosing to focus on the fact that a) this time of year has been celebrated by a lot of different groups of humans for a lot of different reasons, and b) the particular religious aspects around Christmas specifically have led to what I think are some nice secular traditions. Giving gifts and spending time with friends and family don’t belong to any single creed; being a good human is universal.
And you know what? If the religious bits are your jam, I’ll accept your Merry Christmas the same as I’ll accept your Happy Hanukkah or Happy Eid al-Fitr or Happy Diwali or whatever you celebrate, whenever you celebrate it. If it’s a celebration of kindness, of giving, of joy, I would be honored to share in those aspects with you.
I’m not dismissing the thought that this time of year can be tough for a lot of people, by the way, and I wish that was otherwise. Also, I’m aware that Santa Claus is a relatively benign first step down what quickly becomes a much more dogmatic path. But nobody’s saying you can’t just stop there.
I’m not, anyway. You do you.
I’m gonna take some time off and I hope you can as well. It’s been a long year (aren’t they all?) and this is as good a time as any to dissolve into a pile of blankets and aggressively watch Hallmark movies until you start to smell. Take a hot shower and get back in there! That small-town Christmas-themed coffee shop and craft emporium isn’t going to teach you the True Meaning of the Season by itself.
Speaking of business plans that would get you kicked out of every MBA program in the country, why not enjoy a nice hot Cup of Christmas Coffee?
I haven’t decided if anything new is going up on the 30th yet. Maybe I’ll pull some poetry out of the backlog. Or maybe some music, or a drawing? Or a photography collection? I dunno. We will see.
Anyway, I hope you have a good 25th, and all the other days too. Merry Christmas, etc.
–jr
