It’s the time of year when the world falls in love
Aloha, the above is a line from a Christmas song The Christmas Waltz sung by Frank Sinatra. Lou Ann and I have begun our annual holiday Christmas movie watching experience. Some would call it a marathon. We call it a wonderful time of the year. It began this year on October 27th on the Hallmark channel. Our family makes fun of us because we have seen most of these movies over and over. We both grew up in families where Christmas was a special time of the year. For me, it was practically the only time of the year when there was happiness in my home. My dad, who was mostly unemployed would buy several gifts for my mom and write secret messages on them. We carry on that tradition of putting secret messages on gifts. Now it takes a couple of hours to unwrap gifts, because we do it one gift at a time and everyone tries to guess the gift.
Christmas was huge in my personal family and we would buy our four children lots of gifts that would fill up the living room. We have always purchased a live tree and decorated it around Thanksgiving and took it down on New Years day. Many years ago, when we were doing Spirit Church we used to have large gatherings in our home in Sedona where food and gifts were shared with those who might not of had so much. The church members were so giving, it was a lovely experience!
Now, Lou Ann and I continue the tradition of getting that fresh tree and then spending the day decorating and listening to holiday music. One of our favorite movies is titled “Christmas Angel” starring Bruce Davison. The movie is about a woman named Ashley who has been on her own all her life. She feels even more alone this Christmas as she searches fruitlessly for a job. The seasonal cheer around her only rubs salt in her wounds as she scrapes by to support herself and her dog, Dash. But her neighbor, Nick(Davison), knows exactly what to do. He offers her a job, to be his assistant in the best work – helping others. There’s one catch that Ashley must honor though-she can’t tell anyone that her new boss is a sort of Secret Santa, helping others anonymously.
This is what Lou Ann and I aspire to do. Create enough abundance and resources to become Christmas Angels for those who could use some help. This to me is the deepest meaning of the holiday. The holiday season is short and for us. goes by too soon. My wish is for many of us to extend the season of being Angels all year through. Then the whole year through will be “The time of year when the world falls in love”! From my Secret Santa heart to yours, Thomas