By Abe Villarreal
The feeling of Christmas is everywhere. Window frames are brighter. Houses are warmer. Radio station music, a little more familiar. Christmas is everywhere, and while some traditions remain traditional, others are gone and we remain longing for the good old days.
What is it about traditions that make us smile and feel like kids again? Seeing the Hersheys commercials with the ringing Kisses candies, the same one that plays every year, brings back a sense of innocence.
Holidays are a time for reminiscing, thinking about when we were growing up with loved ones, wondering where the time went.
The 1944 movie musical Meet Me In St. Louis was on TV the other day. The story of a family living together, fighting together and finding new loves, takes place during turn-of-the-century Chicago. When the patriarch of the family is offered a new job in New York, a family crisis occurs. How will the kids make new friends and what will happen to the boy next door? the boy for which the teenage daughter has a summer crush.
You see, it's not about department store sales. It's not about the stack of gift cards you're ready to distribute to coworkers and acquaintances. It's about waking up to A Christmas Story and watching it until you fall asleep again.
The best Christmases are about the hour you spent at the soup kitchen making strangers smile. They're about the posole dinner you had with the familiar faces you see at church each week. Holidays worth having are those that you can't remember which gift you purchased or received.
This year, my family is starting a new tradition. We're making homemade tree ornaments. I'm about to start making mine. I know it's going to mean something, not sure what yet, and I'm looking forward to seeing the creativity of my three brothers and parents.
What will the ornaments look like? What will they say about those who made them? What stories will I tell my children about the fun times I had making the ornaments and sharing them with the most important people in my life?
When Judy Garland sang Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas in Meet Me In St. Louis, she was telling her younger sister that despite the family's impending move, there would be one thing in New York that they had in Chicago, a united family.
Whether it's with one person, or many, I hope the same for all of you as we draw close to another season of caroling, eggnog drinking and ornament making. Merry Christmas.
Abe Villarreal is the Director of Communications at Western New Mexico University. When not on campus, he enjoys writing about his observations on marketing, life, people and American traditions.