Bah humbug?

I’ve always hated Christmas. The music is depressing. Watching Black Friday shoppers assault each other is depressing. The movies are either depressing or Hallmark-Channel-dumb. It all coincides with the stress of closing out a sales year.

But check it out. Every year my wife and kids and mother-in-law bake a lot of cookies. As in lots. If you have a chemistry background, you’d know it as 6.02 x 10^23 cookies. Then the wife packages them up on little Christmas paper plates and gives them out to friends, neighbors, family, her tutoring students. She does it just to do it. Just like she puts up with me, just to do it. It’s just an example of how generous she is to people the rest of the year, as a donor, a neighbor, a volunteer. If I enjoy any aspect of the season, it’s because of her.

I think we’ve successfully instilled in our kids a sense of charity, volunteerism, and empathy. Somehow, despite my being Mr. Bad Example, they’ve turned out amazing, more to their mother’s credit than mine. Besides the time they donate to various causes, in their professional lives one helps people in the public sector, and the other one is saving the world one prairie at a time.

It’s great to have a holiday remind us to be better people, but once it’s over, you’ve got to keep that going. Just like Ebenezer Scrooge learned from three scary ghosts (all of them old bosses of mine), the spirit of giving needs to be in your heart year round. Sure, he started forgiving people their debts and went bankrupt within six months, allowing Bob Cratchit to seize the business in a hostile takeover, but forget that part.

This year a lot of people have been affected by war, climate, the economy (which is picking up), lay-offs, gun violence. If you’re on LinkedIn, chances are you’re better off than a lot of those others in the world. Yes, that doesn’t mean you don’t have your own struggles, but hopefully that helps you appreciate the struggles of those others, most of them people you will never meet. But as my favorite author once wrote, we’re all here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.

I know, to a lot of you, cookies are just those digital tokens you get in your browser from all those naughty sites you visit. But they’re a great metaphor. Try to remember to take the time from the crazy speed we’re all operating at, trying to keep a job, find a job, optimize our operations, make connections. Pick a target. You can’t save the world, but you can help a small corner of it. Write a check, make a phone call, volunteer some time, donate some canned goods, be a big brother or sister, be a good neighbor. Don’t just click like on something, or pledge your thoughts and prayers. DO something.

Yeah, I hate the music and the movies and the crowded malls. Still, I try to appreciate the gist of it. The smiles, the giving, the temporary spirit that needs to stretch. The cookies. Yes, yes, the cookies are a great metaphor. I eat a lot of metaphors during the season. Spread your cookies during the holidays, and consider keeping at it. The world needs it. The world needs you.