Merry Christmas

What Christmas means to me:

* Taking time to show family and friends that you love and treasure them.

* Enjoying foods, candies, music, and other cultural traditions that go back well beyond my childhood. Even, yes, the children running around dressed up like little elves.

* Unpacking a growing lifetime of memories of this particular season. People here, people gone.

* Considering my life in context. My incredible good fortune, my potential, my accomplishments in the past year.

* Considering what “hope for the world” might really mean. For all the bad things in the news, I have great hope for the coming year.

To all my friends and family: Know that I’m thinking of you – and if you want to give me a present, do this kind thing for yourself: Take a moment of stillness. Appreciate that it’s okay to be okay. It’s okay to feel (if only in your heart, at first) kindness and compassion for yourself.

Merry Christmas.