There are as many traditions for the Holidays as there are those who observe it. For the Hooper family, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. My Jewish friends celebrate Hanukkah which commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
There are however common threads for everyone. This is a time spent with family and close friends. It’s a time for sights and smells that evoke memories of Christmases past. It is time for the warmth and hope that comes from random acts of goodwill for those less fortunate. It’s a reminder of the enduring power that Christmas has in bringing out the best in the human spirit.
It is a time we appreciate the richness of life and those who have gone before us who contributed to it. The new year and its challenges will come soon enough.
This is a time for reacquainting with family and friends. Christmas will be gone before you know it, and there’s no pleasure like adding to these memories.
If anything, this Christmas comes at a perfect moment for self-reflection, as the nation faces a new chapter in history and as the world looks to America as much as ever to help restore moral order.
Christmas is a moment to take a break, to revel in the company at home and to rekindle the feeling of those earlier years with the sight of a child under the tree. The best of us is brought out in the spirit of giving, in the hope we see and in the goodwill, we show our fellow man.
Christmas means forgetting self and remembering those who have no Christmas. It means leaving our little heavens as Jesus left His big heaven to visit those who need help and who need to hear a message of peace and hope and cheer.
Christmas means that love and kindness rule the season, and what a happier world it becomes. Transformations occur by love and kindness, turning hovels of hate into havens of happiness.
Christmas means that a hard, sometimes cruel world looks for a brief time into the face of God. It looks into a manger and sees the face of little baby Jesus. It sees a vision of what a little baby can do to make a better world. It hears for a moment the song of the angels, singing: “On earth peace, goodwill toward men.”
Christmas causes prodigal sons and daughters to pause in their wayward, downward course and think of mothers and fathers and home.
Christmas is not the Christmas tree or even in the gifts we give. It is in the spirit of love; it is in the Spirit of God walking in our lives. It is the only time of the year that some hearts open to let Him in. Christmas is the time we feel the power of the love of God and his son Jesus Christ.
While most of us give and receive Christmas gifts, God gave us a gift we will never be able to repay. In exchange for our sins and shame, God gave us the gift of eternal salvation by sending His son, Jesus Christ, to earth as our Savior.
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” [Isaiah 9:6]
Merry Christmas everyone.
Perry O. Hooper, Jr. is a former Republican state representative from Montgomery.
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