(Wikimedia Commons)
I hope that you have had a wonderful Christmas season and that you’re having a joyous and satisfying Christmas Day, filled with warmth and love.
I will candidly report, though, that I have always found Christmas Day itself both happy and sad, even a bit depressing.
The reasons for this have changed over the years:
When I was very young, the wonder of the approaching holiday thrilled me. And, of course, there was always the factor of sheer elemental greed. I was eagerly looking forward to what I would get.
After the frenzy of gift-opening on Christmas morning, however, that mystery was taken care of. And, though my toys and new possessions were fun, the excitement and anticipation were over. Christmas would not come again for another year. At least in my case, accordingly, Christmas Day after roughly noon was more than a little bit of a let-down. What I had looked forward to with mounting excitement for a year was done, and, so, the remainder of the day was always and inevitably just a bit disappointing. Reality, at least in this life, never quite lives up to our dreams.
In my adult years, my reasons for finding Christmas not entirely fulfilling are a bit different.
Chiefly, materialism has — to a very considerable degree — lost its mystique for me. For one thing, I know that I’m the one who’s likely to be paying for anything I get. Santa Claus doesn’t bring me presents any more. For another, I will have already bought most of the things that I really want or need in the course of the year. Thus, when people ask me what I want for Christmas, I typically find it hard to come up with ideas. Most fundamentally — although it sounds almost like a sermon to say it — I’ve long since realized that material possessions just don’t yield lasting satisfaction. Not even a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle can do that.
So, apart from family gatherings — we actually had our big extended family get-together last night — and some rather unhealthy but delicious overeating, Christmas Day has, frankly, lost something of its special magic for me.
But I know an absolutely surefire way to achieve the warm glow of Christmas that we all hope for: Giving. Serving. Donating. It is, truly, more blessed to give than to receive.
Please watch this five-minute video and see whether it doesn’t already begin to give you that warm feeling:
“First Presidency Thanks Members for Unprecedented Humanitarian Outreach”
Here, one more time, are the causes on which I’m focused as 2017 comes to its close:
1.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
If you’re a faithful member of the Church, you will surely be paying a full tithe this year, and a generous fast offering. Please consider, though, reaching a little more deeply into your pocket and giving to LDS Charities or LDS Philanthropies.
2.
The Liahona Children’s Foundation
3.
Operation Underground Railroad
4.
http://www.mormoninterpreter.com
“Donating to the Interpreter Foundation”
You can’t be surprised by this last one. Interpreter is obviously a passion of mine, and, as the Foundation’s president and chairman, I have a duty to try to help it grow and achieve its goals.
I’ll be entirely candid and admit that, in a world where so many pressing needs exist — where, for example, many Latter-day Saint and other children are malnourished and where some children are subjected to the evils of sex trafficking and other grievous forms of exploitation — it seems self-indulgent and almost frivolous to ask for support for Interpreter. But I believe that faithful scholarship is very important, and, if I believe that it and such things as symphony orchestras and art museums and college scholarships ought to exist, it would be inconsistent on my part not to will the means that make such things possible.
In any event, I can guarantee that, if you finish off this day with a donation (however small) to one of these causes — or to any other worthy cause of your choosing — you will end the day feeling at least something of that warm Christmas glow. This is a certainty.
Please consider it.
Merry Christmas! Blessings to you and yours!
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