Can political correctness kill a holiday spirit? Oh, yes, it can. We’ve all seen it. There are times and places when and where we have to tread so lightly around people’s tender feelings regarding their special holiday or occasion–or someone else’s–that it’s hard to believe that any of us retain those passions and beliefs after a while. It’s as though we’re allergic to each other’s seasonal happiness. All the same, I do understand that we ought to show reasonable forbearance regarding others’ dearly held views, no matter how far from our own they may be, so long as those views aren’t harming anyone else. And so very, very few of them are, to be fair.
Remember to tread lightly on others’ ground!
But if others want to celebrate things I’m not so attached or attracted to myself, who am I to stand in the way? I like holidays, parties and celebrations very well. I may have even occasionally co-opted others’ holidays just because I think they’re wonderful excuses for enjoying the great things about life and history and happiness. Whether I do or not, I am happy to see my own holiday leanings in any odd spot that inspires me at any moment.
Ho-ho-ho, happy people, whoever you are!
I’m from a pretty common kind of American, Protestant, middle class background myself, so it won’t surprise anyone that I grew up surrounded by the trappings of the middle class, Protestant American version of Christmas. Won’t even shock anyone that after my decades of being surrounded by it, I grew more than a little jaded at the horrendously fat, greedy, commercialized version it morphed into in the public eye and felt shy of celebrating Christmas in that atmosphere. But there’s that sense of tradition and family tied into it as well, and the knowledge that the origins of the holiday and the celebration of it are worlds removed from those crass retail versions of it that irritate me so. So when I see the famed color combination so associated with Christmas in this my home culture, I think I am in a more forgiving mood toward the genuinely human and sometimes very foolish ways that others spend their celebratory energies, and maybe even toward my own.
I wish you all a happy holiday season, whether you celebrate any particular occasion or just enjoy seeing others revel in theirs. There should be plenty of pleasure to go around!
Art-Colored Glasses 
Happy Christmas to you and yours Kathryn
I hope the Ginger household has had a grand Christmas and will have a glorious year in 2014, my friend!! All best to you.
Kathryn
Happy Christmas! All the best for a guid new year!
And I wish you and yours the very same, David. May it be a year of delights and happy adventures all through!
Have a very merry Christmas dear friend!
I hope it’s been a beautiful Christmas for you two and your family, Tig. Many, many blessings to you in the year ahead! I’m so glad our year was enriched by getting to meet you. All best!
Kathryn
I wish you a very merry Christmas and all the best for the new year.
Our Christmas Eve was wildly busy and colorful, and Christmas Day wonderfully quiet and peaceful. All just delightful. I hope your holidays have been lovely so far and that the year ahead will be full of joyful adventures for you!!
xo
Kathryn
“It’s as though we’re allergic to each other’s seasonal happiness.” If you don’t mind a bit of flippancy, I’ll point out that at Christmastime many people in central Texas begin to experience the unhappy effects of a literal allergy to the masses of airborne pollen produced by male Ashe juniper trees. The malady has long been known by the name cedar fever, and lots of central Texans wish they could have a holiday from it. I hope you have that allergy-free holiday up there in north Texas.
Oh, we’ve had plenty of fun with the allergy goodies here, too. Mostly, I’ve been the queen of dry, itchy eyes for a couple of weeks straight. I thought for a little while that I’d scratched my left eyeball, it was so nasty for about 3 days. Phooey. But Christmastime, thankfully, offers plenty of alternative attention grabbers that keep me from obsessing about itchy eye-bulbs. Hope you’ve been able to keep relatively allergy-free yourself. And may you have a superb 2014!
Kathryn
A merry Christmas to you and yours, Kathryn, and may 2014 have good things in store for you.
I wish you the very same, dear John. May you and your wonderful family find all kinds of joys awaiting you in the year ahead! All best,
Kathryn