It's a Wonderful Life...right? RIGHT?

As part of our family tradition, every year we have "Christmas movie night". It started when my daughter was very young and, at the time, we would watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Easy enough to do in about an hour. Over the years, the list has grown to include the non-animated version of The Grinch, The Polar Express, It's a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Family Man. "Christmas movie night" turned into more of a "Christmas movie film festival".

Now, not all of these are what some would consider true "Christmas" movies, but as time has changed, so have we. Each of these films means something to us, albeit a reminder of a Christmas a few years ago. I haven't added The Wizard of Oz yet...but that was a reminder of a traumatic experience involving flying monkeys and being scared not knowing exactly when the Witch was going to explode into the middle of Munchkinland...

But I digress.

Since we started this tradition, our daughter has grown up and lives with her boyfriend. Through her middle-school, and then high school years, she'd stick around to watch the original favorites, but usually was playing WOW (World of Warcraft) and...let's be honest, there is only so much of Mom and Dad you can take in a sitting.

We still do "Christmas movie night",  but it's just the original two films. My wife and I watch the others by ourselves. We both have our favorites, but an unspoken rule dictates that we watch the other person's favorites without complaints.

Okay, so apart from boring everyone to tears with my trip down memory lane, what's the point?

Well, this year has been a trying one; for everyone, not just us. We've dealt with cancer in our family, though we have a lot to be thankful for, Dad's in full remission now and finally eating without his feeding tube. Financially, it's been a very turbulent year. Medical care aside, the economy has hurt everyone we know in some way. Christmas felt as though it crept up and surprised us this year. We saw some of our neighbors decorating after Thanksgiving and said "we must do that" and never got around to it.

This is also the first year we haven't bought a tree.

It's not an "anti-Christmas" feeling. We love the season and the reason for the season (not just the commercial ones). But, in addition to money concerns, we just haven't felt "Christmassy".

This brings me to the point in a very circuitous route and my relationship to Charlie Brown and the Grinch. Like them, Christmas seemed to have lost some of its meaning, especially this year. The advertising on TV is almost desperate. The tree lots in this area are still very full. Many people around us haven't put up lights. We're not buying presents this year (like many other people).

So, that strips out all the "commercial" aspects; what's left other than a day off on the 25th?

Christmas is what you make it. Like Charlie Brown, Feeling Christmas is stripping back all the commercial facade and seeing it for what it is: a celebration of a new beginning, being grateful for what we do have and, like the Grinch, acknowledging that Christmas comes "without bows, without strings".

It really is a season of goodwill. You don't have to be religious to take meaning from the season. Whatever your faith (or non), there is good to be found and fresh beginnings to plan.

In my case, my father-in-law's recover cancer was a miracle. Diagnosed exactly a year ago, he was given a 50/50 chance at best, the cancer has progressed so far. Even his surgeon and oncologist acknowledged that this was a "remarkable" recovery. I think they couldn't say "miraculous" :)

My daughter, now grown up, turned out okay. She's with a guy who loves her dearly. She's sensible. She works and attends college. She pays the bills. She doesn't do drugs, she doesn't party. My wife and I are in excellent health. We both just had our annual medicals and it's a clean bill of health (woohoo - extra butter in those mashed potatoes please). We still have a roof over our head. We can put food on the table.

So what if there aren't any gifts this year? We have pretty much all we want. The rest is just "stuff".

To make a final comparison to George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life), if you look back and consider how things could have gone, even if you didn't have a banner year, you should (hopefully) realize that things could have been much much worse. If you feel as though you have nothing else to celebrate this year, celebrate that.

Forgive me if I sound as though I'm giving a sermon, I really don't mean to. This year, like all others, the Christmas season is very special. There's time for worry...there will always be time for worry. We're as individual as snowflakes. Each one has a reason for being and, like snowflakes, we can be beautiful and enhance our surroundings, or we can make things difficult for ourselves and everyone else. The season is about giving and those gifts do not have to be physical.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever your particular celebration may be. If you consider, just for a moment, what it took to get to this precise moment, your reading this blog, from the Creation (which version is up to you) to now, you have to acknowledge, at least partially, that "It's a Wonderful Life".