“It’s true, wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.”
– From “It Feels Like Christmas,” The Muppet Christmas Carol

For my favorite holiday of the year, just a few words.

The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love, and love is essential to joy. Or, putting it the other way, the spirit of Christmas is the spirit of joy, which has its root in love. Either way, that is why we should keep it with us all through the year.

While the way we treat Christmas has changed over the centuries, most especially with the overwhelming commercial influence, what Christmas is really about, what it really is, has remained largely unchanged.

To celebrate the birth of Christ is to honor what He represents, namely: the enduring power and necessity of love on Earth, true and eternal, charitable and forgiving. The angels in the Bible said it best, for what is the greatest way we can glorify God? Peace on Earth, and goodwill towards mankind.

Which, it should be noted, is distinctly more than just a lack of wars between nations. Peace and goodwill together is the spirit of love unbounded. Peace among nations is love among neighbors, among families, among communities, strangers, and foreigners, among everyone. Whether us agree with them about everything or (more often) not.

The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love for all, starting with those closest to us and working outwards from there.

And, one more note: this includes loving and being at peace with oneself, as well. I mention that, in particular, for all those I have seen who have lacked such. We are, so very often, much, much more harsh with ourselves than with others, and that, I think, does a disservice to oneself and to those we might more fully love if we didn’t have our self-hatred in the way.

Thus, on this note of love for all mankind, and the great joy it brings, I say to you, my wonderful audience, and to everyone in the world, regardless of race, religion, creed, nationality, ethnicity, gender, or anything else, two words, from the bottom of my heart:

Merry Christmas!