Christmas is so full of things for which to be grateful. Family and friends around us, good food and far too much of it, fun, games, laughter, surprises, more food, more friends – the list just goes on. There’s the the crush of shopping, the rush of wrapping, the panic as you check that list one last time. Is Wal-Mart still open?
Perhaps your Christmas is a bit different, though.
Perhaps you’re a single Mom in a tiny town, struggling to get any food on the table, never mind anything special for Christmas goodies. Christmas presents – even stocking stuffers – would leave you without food or gas till the end of the month. Your wealth is in your friends who care for you and your family and make sure that Christmas is special no matter what.
Or perhaps you’re a single guy living in an apartment by himself. You’ve been alone for more Christmases than you care to remember but that doesn’t make them easier to get through. You have friends, of course, but they all have families they visit at Christmas instead of you. Perhaps your wealth at Christmas is in one friend who makes sure you’re not alone for once.
Perhaps you’re another recently single guy, spending your first Christmas in years without your wife and your five-year-old daughter. You swap shifts at work over the holidays so other guys can spend them with their families – and so you don’t have to go home to an empty house. Your wealth is in your family who is there for you, with a full, welcoming house to come to.
These are all real people. They all touch my life – some as family, some as closely as family, some simply as friends of family. My wealth is that they are in my life, for the happiness they bring to me, to others or to those I love.
Merry Christmas 2011.