Joy to the World or Why Its Important to Be Kind During the Holidays

It's December 24.

It's Christmas Eve. In a vinyl-sided house, there are little children. There are half-hearted decorations, but there are not going to be any toys tomorrow. No presents this year. There were no presents last year or the year before that. That’s a secret and no one is supposed to know that.

At school, there are candy canes and Christmas music. The little drummer boy pounds a frenzied rhythm to culminate in what might be a joyous holiday for some people. In this vinyl-sided house, there’s only a disappointment that looks and smells like cold oatmeal.

When all the students come back to school from Christmas break, everyone is wearing the new clothes they got for Christmas. The children from the vinyl-sided house go back to school, but they hope no one will notice that their clothes aren’t new.

They didn’t get anything tangible for the holidays, but they did get emotional baggage.

The kids from the vinyl-sided house eventually grew up and they moved out of the vinyl-sided house. Everywhere they go, they carry their emotional baggage.

They can’t put it down.

There isn't an inn where the emotional baggage is welcome so the kids have to hide it. They pretend they don’t have it.

But it sure is hard to carry anyway.

The grown up kids strain under the weight of their emotional baggage.  They are putting on a brave smile to hide all the hurt.

There isn’t a place where they are given leeway to express their hurt. The emotional wounds bleed all over everyone they meet. Other people make fun of them for their emotional baggage if these grown up kids show vulnerability. Actually, though, everyone has some emotional baggage and they hope other people won’t find out.

“It's the Hap…Happiest Time of the Year!”

It's the Holidays. People feel a variety of ways about this time of the year. When people travel to see loved ones, they carry a suitcase full of clothes and presents.  There is another suitcase people carry that you can’t immediately see - the emotional baggage.

From November to January: It's a party, but none of us are coming empty-handed.

We are coming with expectations.

What is emotional baggage? Like the spices on a spice rack, emotional baggage comes in all flavors. Some examples include, but are not limited to:

“Things I don't want to deal with…”

“People I don't like that I have to go see…”

“Memories I want to forget…”

“I miss someone that isn’t here.”

“I can’t keep up. Everything costs too much.”

“I am hurting but I can’t tell anyone…”

“It’s so lonely, but I am supposed to be happy…”

“I feel so cold and bored…”

“I am sick and tired…”

Let’s say that despite all that we are going to go shopping for Christmas presents.  It's hard to wait in long lines and traffic jams. No one has compassion for others if they don’t learn self compassion for themselves.

Imagine going to Costco and finding a piece of luggage you will fill with bricks and affix to your back for the rest of your life. Then from November to January, you are expected to dance with it on.

So why be kind?

I think Barbara Kingsolver wrote about it best when she told the story of “How They Eat in Heaven” from her novel The Bean Trees.

In Hell, she writes, everyone is hungry because though they have ample food, they only have long handled spoons that are too long to comfortably reach their own mouths.

In Heaven, they have the same food and the same spoons. But in heaven, other people feed you and you in turn feed other people. No one goes hungry in heaven.

To put it bluntly, everyone has some pain or unconscionable ache that can’t be assuaged because they can’t personally reach it. But kindness can.

This is the difference between living in heaven and hell.

The grown up kids from the vinyl sided house are at a party and someone that knows their secret attacks them, “I know you did not have any presents at your house when you were a kid. It must be such a treat to come to my party today.” This is hell.

In contrast, this is heaven.

“I am so glad we can spend this holiday together, and make this one better than any of the others we ever had.”

One time, a friend’s grandmother died around the holidays. The family asked for a donation in memory to a charity. I gave a small donation, but eventually the friendship ended badly. The charity never forgot me though my friend did. Every few months for the next few years, I got a letter from the charity asking for more money. The relationship that caused the donation had long since ended but the letters brought me painful reminders. The simple piece of paper opened up a wound that would not heal. And that is similar to how the Holidays themselves can bring an annual sadness and reminders of emotional baggage no one knows we are carrying.

The antidote is kindness. Be kind.

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