Merry Christmas

God is love. Christmas is all about love. Love is the key to peace and happiness. Love needs to be practiced, love needs to flow. It starts with your partner, your children and family, and from there expands to everyone else.

Why was Ebenezer Scrooge so unhappy? If you knew only the man's assets and had never read Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," probably you could not guess the answer. Most of us believe (if we are honest enough to admit it) that happiness comes through getting. If only I can get a new (pick one) house, car, job, promotion, or relationship, I will be happy. But Ebenezer Scrooge was unhappy not because of a failure to get but a failure to give, and this, I submit, is the most important message of Christmas.

I had to become a parent before I discovered the principle for myself. As a child the chief joy in life, especially at Christmas time, was getting. I still remember the happiness I felt receiving my first new bicycle, and my first BB gun. Similarly, words simply cannot describe the joy Michelle and I received watching our five open gifts on Christmas morning. I imagine we can all call to mind a picture of a joyful child on Christmas morning, their delight surpassed only by that of their parents.

By midlife all of us should know that our best joys come through giving. And yet we forget; don't we? Maybe it's all those commercials that convince us we really can't be satisfied unless we buy the new and improved version of some product (translation: happiness comes through getting).

Christmas is a good time of year to remind ourselves of the truth. The most important message of Christmas is that of joyous giving. It's the message of our seasonal classics like "A Christmas Carol" and "It's A Wonderful Life." And, more importantly, it's the message of that first Christmas. For the baby in Bethlehem's manger was a gift, a present from a loving heavenly father to his lost and hurting children, a gift the Bible says brought "good tidings of great joy" to giver and receiver alike.

Where will we find happiness in the second half of life? The same place we found it in the first half. Look around you. What are your opportunities to give with joy? These are your best chances at midlife happiness.

Yes, I believe in Santa. He is me and he is you. I'm writing because I want you to know that I believe in Santa. I love to look into the eyes of those filled with a sense of childlikeness and magic, and, their experience of surprise and joy. I have looked into the eyes of a child and an adult, and I've seen there a world that I once knew, a world I love to reenter if only once a year on Christmas eve, a world where reindeer fly and wishes come true, a world of great surprise and great joy and great peace and great love, especially the great love.

Merry Christmas to you and yours. Ric