Many of the guests will eventually leave the table to watch football on television, which would be a rudeness at any other occasion but is a relief at Thanksgiving and probably the only way to get those people to budge. (Judith Martin: Miss Manners.)
May the lights of Hanukkah usher in a better world for all humankind. (Author Unknown)
Christmas isn't a season, it's a feeling. (Edna Ferber)
In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukkah" and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hanukkah!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall! Dave Barry
This is not an astrological article only in the sense of time, space and energy which astrology maps, and every year we have the procession and march of the holidays with several jammed into a two month period as we scramble toward the end of one year and the beginning of another. We eat, party, drink, decorate, buy and reel toward the New Year. I really think we should have October to January off so we can savor and truely find that "meaning" we all look for high and low.
It's always the little things, the things that we take for granted which make up our best memories, the smallest of things. How a tree smells, cookies baking, the scent of a baby, the sloppy and wet glued present from a child. We remember a particularly beautiful autumn, a soft snow, or spectacular spring. One of my most favorite memories that I look forward to seeing every year at this time is how colored Christmas lights cast a glow of beauty on otherwise drab old houses. There is a little house in a pretty run down section of town and year after year there are old electric yellow candle lights flickering in the window, and a single string of holiday lights across the porch; that little house just glows with hope and festivity. I like to drive by several times every year because it fills my heart with joy and the spirit of the season.
I think it's the cramming in of so many holidays in a two month period that makes us stop and think of what's important to us (and it isn't black Friday shopping) and fills us with hope for a New Year. Most of us have had years where we had to really search to find something to be thankful for or have sacrificed up to the hilt and don't know how to make it through. Most of us have had some very lonely and sad even tragic years, hopefully to be followed by years filled with love and friendship. But all of us have had bits of happy glowing memories, little memories that will carry us through toward a faith that life will get better.
Life has been tough for a lot of people this past year; floods, fires, tornadoes, lost jobs, lost wages, fore-closers and we don't know what's ahead. But this holiday season, no matter if you say Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays look at all the little things that bring happiness, those things are all around us, look at a few of your "favorite things."
The energy is shifting and changing around us, and it's shifting rapidly, for some the shift represents danger and for others it represents opportunity. As we "reel" toward the New Year, look and expect opportunity to cross your path because we are off and running now and a full moon will propel us along this season.