It’s only a week until Christmas and I still haven’t caught the Christmas bug. No urge to fight the crowds at the mall. No urge to outline my house with strings of lights in the bitter cold. No urge to stand in line at the post office to mail cards and packages. No urge to stuff my refrigerator with glutenous foods. No urge to squeeze into a cocktail dress and rub elbows at the high brow parties. No urge to fulfill empty traditions.
Christmas was celebrated very differently when I lived in Spain. Oh how the Spanish love a fiesta and as you can imagine, Christmas is the ultimate fiesta. They celebrate for an entire month, but not in the shopping malls. On December 8th, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the biggest city to the smallest village is strung with a plethora of colored lights swaging from giant white stars over the main street with life sized nativities featured in the town square. Jovial local holiday markets spring up and the locals congregate in the streets to simply share in the joy of the season, listening to street music, warming their hands over kettle fires, nibbling on tapas and sipping mulled wine.
Nochebuena, Christmas Eve, is celebrated with two important traditions. One is in the cathedral for Christmas mass. The other is the gathering of family and friends around the table for plate after plate of decadent food, washed down by copious amounts of wine, celebrating into the wee hours of the morning. After the flourish of the night before, Día de Navidad is often spent as a quiet day of rest with family or a paseo to visit neighbors in the local square.
In January, the “Three Kings” come to town, ambling down Main Street on their camels in splendid regalia, tossing sweets to the children. This is their time of gift giving. . . and the gifts are to the real kings and queens, our children!
Once I was removed from the pandemonium of the American Christmas, there was no going back to the old trappings for me. I now savor the simplify of the season with whatever brings me joy in the present moment. The more simple my life, the more enlivened it has become!
My only urge this holiday season is to bring in some cedar boughs most graciously offered from my enchanted forest, illuminate the house with candles, light a fire in the fireplace, enliven the house with harp music, engage with my heart-centered friends and family, savor some delectable chocolate, and toast another miraculous year of Heaven on Earth.
My desire is to rest in the Peace I feel within me, send Loving Blessing from my heart to all of humanity and to sprinkle the world in Joy. I haven’t been bit by the illusive Christmas bug, but I DO have the Christ-mass Spirit. . . . For me, the holiday is one of Love and Light, expanding Joy-filled Hearts, and MAGNIFICENT multidimensional unfoldings. No wonder I haven’t found it waiting in the wings, I celebrate it in every moment all year long!
So my Beloved friends and family, as one Christ Child to another, I gift you with an Abundance of Peace, Love and Joy. . . and remind you that Miracles and Magic are Always afoot¸.☆*¨¯`♥
~Sharon Lyn Shepard~
www.sharonlynshepard
artwork by Josephine Wall
ps: After reading this Capricorn New Moon Report, it’s no wonder so many of us have been drawn inward to return to the simplicity of Love and reinvent the old Holiday traditions! http://lightworkers.org/channeling/148853/capricorn-new-moon-24-december-2011
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