{"id":27527,"date":"2023-12-21T07:51:22","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T12:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=27527"},"modified":"2023-12-21T07:51:22","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T12:51:22","slug":"we-are-the-keepers-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/we-are-the-keepers-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are The Keepers of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"MerryWe Are The Keepers of Christmas<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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 only to be swallowed up by the long winter darkness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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\u2019s sky-canvas. That canvas will stay with us until spring decides to appear from the barren frozen ground.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christmas is only days away now, and of course, some still refuse to call it Christmas \u2014 as if saying the word somehow entangles them in some religious denomination or organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christmas is not \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d, it\u2019s Christmas. If someone does not want to call it \u201cChristmas\u201d they should not be taking time off work, exchanging gifts, or celebrating\u2026 no one will force them to. But, of course, they will anyway. Christmas doesn\u2019t 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\u2019ll see them putting up Christmas trees, shopping for gifts, knocking back a drink or two\u2026 and celebrating the very holiday they deny.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m tired of politics. I\u2019m tired of hypocrites. I\u2019m tired of deniers and liars and \u201cinfluencers\u201d. I just want Christmas to be the way it should be – the way it always was. I\u2019ll admit it was getting harder to find the spirit of Christmas — it is so often buried in cultural upheaval, ignorance, and politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christmas has become an easy target for deniers and hypocrites who can\u2019t stand to be part of anything they don\u2019t understand \u2014 or don\u2019t want to understand \u2014 and won\u2019t take the time to understand. Some just don’t like seeing other people being happy.
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This year, I will admit, I was having an extremely hard time finding the spirit of Christmas. I cannot deny it. I had a very difficult time convincing myself that Christmas would endure much past my generation. I couldn\u2019t shake off the dust and dirt the world had piled upon it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then something happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ChristmasI 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

The innocence and sweetness touched me\u2026 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. We keep it alive. We are the keepers of Christmas.
\n<\/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 try to kill it or deny it.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, you and I, all of us, really are the keepers of Christmas.\u00a0 We keep the magic alive so that our children, our children\u2019s children, and their children, will know the meaning and the magic of Christmas. They will know because Christmas lives on in our hearts. We all are the keepers of Christmas and because of us, future generations will know the magic and the spirit of Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those of us who are the keepers of Christmas have an important job. The future of Christmas depends on us. No matter how much the world changes, no matter how crazy the world gets, or 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, the true meaning of Christmas, the story of Christmas, and the magic of Christmas will live on forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christmas will never die.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christmas is not about what others do \u2013 it\u2019s about what we do. Christmas is not about what others say, it\u2019s 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 of 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\u2019s a place in our hearts. And as long as Christmas lives in our hearts, Christmas will never die.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s up to us to keep the true meaning and spirit of Christmas alive.\u00a0\u00a0If we keep Christmas in our hearts and keep Christmas well \u2013\u00a0 Christmas will live forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are the keepers of Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Merry<\/p>\n

We wish you and your family a very Blessed and Merry Christmas!<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We Are The Keepers of Christmas It\u2019s 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 only to be swallowed up by the long winter darkness.\u00a0 It\u2019s always windy this time of year, and that makes the dead\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":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27527"}],"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=27527"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27535,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27527\/revisions\/27535"}],"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=27527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}