staked

"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. " - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Got this in the mail recently, and it made me think a bit more than the collective brain efforts of the past month. I don't agree with it entirely, mostly because it has too much of a capitalist-prole slant (duh it's Dickens), but also because in the middle of my church switching saga, I feel more like the race of creatures bound on another journey and leaving my fellow passengers to the grave behind.

And so, I would tend to identify more with this:

"If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

Celebration of God's grace, yes; but ultimately I think it's more a cause for mourning - that we should have caused Him the trouble in the first place, and that he had to die for people who often take his sacrifice for granted, who get distracted by the poor imitation of His gift giving and trivialise its significance with festivities. I suppose it's quite a harsh stance to take and I suppose most people aren't like that (hopefully), and I could just attribute this crap to my crabby mood, but I think it does apply a lot ot myself to. Christmas for me is largely a time for introspection, and I suppose it brings to light all the deficiencies which I then get irritated at. The plague of introverted-ness.