Love Which Is Beyond Christmas

This is just a quick thought, something I've been mulling over in my mind. I just finished my Christmas cards for this year and felt twinges of pain as I have left off names of friends and family that are no longer earth-bound or for couples that are no longer together. I've had some friends and family that have lost loved ones in recent weeks or have separated/divorced, and I have found myself more grieved than if the loss of life or the end of relationships were in May or June. I understand that Christmas truly is a special time of year, but why is it that many feel their loss in a greater sense because the loss happened in close proximity to the holiday of Christmas? Why can't we feel our friends' and families' grief as acutely six months from now when there is no holiday of such familial importance? I'm not saying that these losses are any less now than they are any other time of year, it just seems that we (commonly speaking) are touched in a greater way because of the holidays. We hear of someone's passing or of broken families and we instantly remark "And so close to Christmas, too." And then we want more than anything to be with those who are left with the grief and to somehow make the holidays somewhat brighter. We are kinder, more ready to reach out to those who are mourning in a season of joy. But why only during the holidays can we be like this? Why can't we be touched by a loss and respond to the families like we would if it were near Christmas? It is an incredibly sad thing to experience loss any other time and the support or emotional feelings (Christmas Spirit induced sympathy) should not be limited to the holiday season.

"I have always thought of Christmas time 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."

~Charles Dickens

"Somehow, not only for Christmas

But all the long year through,

The joy that you give to others

Is the joy that comes back to you.

And the more you spend in blessing

The poor and lonely and sad,

The more of your heart's possessing

Returns to you glad."

John Greenleaf Whittier