North Shore Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Before we begin, I want to invite you all to the Annual Holiday Open House that Eric and I hold at our house every year. It will be held on the Sunday after Christmas, December 27, from 1 to 5 pm, and there will be light refreshments and drinks and holiday music and cheer. I hope that any of you who wouldn’t mind crossing the lake will stop over.
And please remember that on the first Sunday of the New Year, January 3rd, First Church will host the first annual shared Greater New Orleans UU Jazz Funeral for the Old Year at 10:30 am. We’ll have a brass band and a real casket to bury our cares and concerns from 2009 to clear the way for the New Year, ending with a joyous secondline. Readers in the service will include North Shore’s Terry Van Brunt as well as Rev. Jim and Rev. Jane Dwinell and our Ministerial Intern Charlie Dieterich. We hope you’ll all be there.
Our Meditation and our Reading this morning remind us that all children and all people are special – not only that: all life is a miracle. Christmas time, the holiday season, is a good time to remember those important things. Christmas may just be another day on the calendar, but most of us are either unwilling or unable to see December 25th as just any another day. If you have small children in your household or in your extended family, it would be almost impossible to convince them that there was no reason to make a big deal of the holiday. But even without children, it would take either a very determined person or a very depressed person to ignore all the holiday goings-on around us. (And only the grinchiest of Grinches could not have been touched by the joy and excitement caused by the snow on the North Shore during the holiday season this month.)
There are always good excuses for NOT celebrating. Yes, it’s true: it costs too much money, it takes a lot of time, and it’s a lot of trouble. And yes, in almost every year, there comes some kind of trouble or major problem that seems to call the holiday season into question. After 9/11, after Katrina, after the recession – after any disaster or negative happening, many people question whether holding a holiday is appropriate.
Well, I’m a 5th-generation New Orleanian, so my answer is always Yes, it’s a good idea to celebrate the holiday (whatever the holiday is). For one thing, human beings, even we modern human beings, are seasonal creatures. We are affected in ways we don’t even understand by the pulls of time and tide, the changing angles of light, and the subtle shifts in the length of the day. As near as we can tell, human beings have always marked the change of seasons with special rituals and holidays. Maybe it’s not just “OK” to celebrate the season – maybe we need to do it.
Recent news reports about studies on the links between happiness, health, and social relationships point to another reason to celebrate the holidays, especially with loved ones. In brief, the study, by James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis, looked at a research cohort over 20 years, and came to the conclusion that being happy makes you healthier, and that happiness is catching. Of course, they did not phrase their finding in quite that way; as one academic reviewer put it,
A recent meta-analysis of longitudinal observational studies found that measures of happiness, cheerfulness, and related constructs were associated prospectively with reduced mortality, both in initially healthy people and in those with established illnesses.…
…Regardless of methodological caveats, the work by Fowler and Christakis is groundbreaking in positing the intriguing hypothesis that some psychosocial determinants of health could be transmitted through social connections.
Yikes! To put all that in language we’re more used to, it’s simple: hanging around with people who are happy makes you happier, and makes you healthier too, no matter your socioeconomic status, your environment, or your pre-existing medical conditions. Think of that – celebrating the holidays with people you love, people who are glad to be with you, people who enjoy the holiday season – can make you happier AND healthier.
This is not to say that in order to be happy and healthy during the holiday season you have to subject yourself to every holiday party that comes down the pike, endure endless loops of badly played Christmas carols, bake 20 dozen cookies, decorate your house inside and out with hand-made ornaments and decorations like some crazed Martha Stewart, or spend yourself into bankruptcy buying wildly expensive gifts. In order to truly enjoy the gifts of the holiday season, you must learn to be a good and even strict editor of your holiday activities.
The first thing you must do to have happy holidays is to only do those holiday events or activities that bring you joy and make you happy. Eliminate or reduce all those things that are stressful or upsetting to you. Buy cookies or holiday goodies instead of killing yourself standing on your feet all day in the kitchen, making everything from scratch – who cares? The store-bought goodies will be just as appreciated and as gratefully received. Have the store or the mall wrap the gifts. Never, ever, do holiday shopping on weekends. Decide what’s the minimum holiday décor to set the scene for your Christmas, and then call it a day. Draw a healthy boundary around yourself, as a gift from you to you, and you’ll be glad you did.
The second thing to ensure enjoyment of the holiday season is to maintain an “attitude of gratitude” – be thankful for what you have, for the beauty around you, for good things that happen to you and for the good people that cross your path, for this congregation and for the community of our three congregations. You don’t have to have a person or thing to thank, just wake up and go to bed grateful. Realize that things could always be worse and be grateful that they’re not. I promise, you’ll always find things to be grateful for.
Third, get outside yourself and reach out to those who are not as fortunate as you. And no matter your situation, there’s always folks less fortunate than you. As Margaret Collier Graham wrote in a little Christmas book published in 1906, “There is always somebody to be made more cheerful and there is nearly always a way of doing it.” Drop coins in the cauldron by the Salvation Army bell-ringer. Bring a scarf or a coat or a sweater for the Mitten Tree that the Sunday School children are collecting. Donate money or items to the organizations in St. Tammany that collect for needy families and individuals. Babysit for a single parent friend, or parent-sit for a friend with an elderly parent at home.
Rev. Jim and I have recently gotten involved with the important issue of wage theft in the greater New Orleans area; hundreds, even thousands of construction workers, day laborers, domestic workers, and restaurant workers are cheated out of their proper wages every pay period. This is a justice issue very close to home. Let us find ways as individuals as families, and as a congregation, to devote our money, our time, our skills to help others – and you’ll be amazed at how much better YOU feel.
Finally, savor the small joys of this time of year, those unexpected moments, which can give such unalloyed holiday pleasure. Many of these holiday delights are free or inexpensive. Go to the Ritz Hotel in the old Maison Blanche building in downtown New Orleans and check out the life-size gingerbread house. Go to the Roosevelt Hotel and admire the block-long lobby's decorations -- and be sure to look for my husband Eric as a giant Toy Soldier playing a herald trumpet for Santa at the Teddy Bear Tea. Savor the way old Mandeville is decorated for the season. Drive around your neighborhood and scope out other people’s outdoor decorations and be sure to fire your inner aesthetics critic – just enjoy the love, enthusiasm, and holiday spirit being exemplified. Visit Celebration in the Oaks in City Park or drive over to Lafreniere Park and gawk at Al Copeland’s decorations once again. When your favorite holiday song comes on the radio, turn it up and sing along. When somebody says, “Have a Christmas cookie,” say thanks and enjoy the taste of it. (If you’re on a diet, just have ONE.) Draw in deep breaths of the Fraser fir Christmas tree smell. Look at your gifts with appreciation before you open them, and open them all, even the flannel pajamas and the re-gifts, with a sense of appreciation and gratitude for the love being expressed, however clumsily or awkwardly.
We all need joy in our lives, and the holiday season offers us many opportunities. May we face the holidays knowing our limits, filled with gratitude and generosity, and a sense of appreciation. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!
