It’s a wintry mix kind of day. The sky is obscured with an unending blanket of gray that will never brighten and yield to an increasingly earlier sunset and only to be swallowed up by the long winter darkness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It’s always windy this time of year, and that makes the dead cold of winter even more foreboding. The winter solstice has yet to come yet winter surrounds me. The once vibrant trees which were bursting with life just a few weeks ago, now stand brittle, dull, creaking skeletons swaying under the mournful gray of nature’s sky-canvas. That canvas will stay with us until spring decides to appear from the barren frozen ground.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas is less than three weeks away. And, of course, some still refuse to call it Christmas — as if saying the word somehow entangles them in some kind of religious denomination or organization. <\/span><\/p>\n Christmas is not “Happy Holidays”, it’s Christmas. If someone does not want to call it “Christmas” they should not be taking time off work, exchanging gifts, or celebrating… no one will force them to. But, of course, they will anyway. Christmas doesn’t exist to them, but they will be hypocrites and celebrate what they love to deny.<\/span><\/p>\n Many of those who shun Christmas will still be glowing in the revelry of Christmas, though. You’ll see them putting up Christmas trees, shopping for gifts, and knocking back a drink or two… and celebrating the very holiday they deny.<\/span><\/p>\n I’m tired of politics. I’m tired of hypocrites. I’m tired of deniers and liars and “influencers”. I just want Christmas to be the way it always was. I’ll admit it was getting harder to find the spirit of Christmas, it is so often is buried in cultural upheaval and politics. <\/span><\/p>\n Christmas has become an easy target for deniers and hypocrites who can’t stand to be part of anything they don’t understand — or don’t want to understand — and won’t take the time to understand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This year,\u00a0 I was having an extremely hard time finding the spirit of Christmas. I will not deny it. I had a very difficult time convincing myself that Christmas would endure much past my generation. I couldn’t shake off the dust and dirt the world has piled upon it.<\/span><\/p>\n Then something happened.<\/span><\/p>\n The innocence and sweetness touched me… and made me stop and think.<\/span><\/p>\n I realized then that Christmas does not come from outside ourselves, it comes from within; Christmas lives in our hearts.<\/span><\/p>\n If I keep Christmas in my heart, and you keep Christmas in yours, Christmas will never die, no matter how much some people try to kill it or deny it.<\/span><\/p>\n So, you and I are the keepers of Christmas.\u00a0 We keep the magic alive so that our children, our children’s children, and their children, will know the meaning and the magic of Christmas. They will know because Christmas lives on in our hearts. We are the keepers of Christmas and because of us, future generations will know the magic and the spirit of Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n We have an important job – us keepers of Christmas. The future of Christmas depends on us. No matter how much the world changes, no matter how much the deniers try to kill it, no matter what happens in this crazy world, Christmas will live on because of us.\u00a0 And as long as we keep Christmas alive in our hearts, the true meaning of Christmas, the story of Christmas, and the magic of Christmas… Christmas will never die.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas is not about what others do – it’s about what we do. Christmas is not about what others say, it’s about what we say. We are entrusted with keeping the Christmas spirit and magic of Christmas alive despite and in spite of the obtuse labyrinth and craziness that surrounds us.<\/span><\/p>\n No one can take away Christmas as long as we, the keepers of Christmas, persevere.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas is not a date on the calendar, it’s a place in our hearts. And as long Christmas lives in our hearts, Christmas will live on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It’s up to us to keep the true meaning and spirit of Christmas alive.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>If we keep Christmas in our hearts and keep Christmas well –\u00a0 Christmas will live forever.<\/span><\/p>\n We are the keepers of Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n Merry Christmas!<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Keepers of Christmas It’s a wintry mix kind of day. The sky is obscured with an unending blanket of gray that will never brighten and yield to an increasingly earlier sunset and only to be swallowed up by the long winter darkness.\u00a0 It’s always windy this time of year, and that makes the dead cold\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,1741,2273],"tags":[2031],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22619"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22648,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619\/revisions\/22648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Christmas](\"https:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/images\/2022\/xmaspic.jpg\")
I received a picture from my youngest son. It was a picture of my two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter holding her teddy bear out to her Christmas tree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n