Generosity and Abundance

We are never more frazzled than during the holidays. We shop endlessly for everyone on our lists. We go to parties, bake cookies, dangle precipitously from our roofs to decorate. So why aren’t we tired? Every year, it seems we should be exhausted, but at the end of the day, we smile, sit by the fire and sip hot chocolate. Under the lurid light of the artificial tree, everything seems right with the world.

I have a theory.

Part of this rare energy comes from being fully immersed in the season. We tap in to the delight of children when we hear holiday songs and wrap things up with paper and tape. The real source of that energy, though, comes from the generosity that abundance allows us. This season affords more opportunities for generosity than the rest of the year put together. We take time to care during the holidays. We put spare change in the red bucket. We allow the grocery clerk to add a few dollars to our bill to feed the hungry. We even chip in at the pet store to help less fortunate animals.

We don’t ask for anything in return, but we get something anyway. We get fuel. We are all like the Grinch when he lifts up the sleigh.

There is now a word for what retailers do when they put Christmas items out in October. It is called Christmas Creep, and there is a movement afoot to push it back to Thanksgiving Day. It won’t work because Christmas Creep is terribly effective, but maybe we can learn to think of it differently. Maybe Christmas Creep is just an extended opportunity to celebrate our personal, emotional, mental, physical and financial abundance with a longer season of grateful generosity.