Promises to Keep

My favorite thing about Christmas is that at Christmastime, people feel like it's okay to tell/show the people they love that, well, they love them. It's acceptable to be emotional. It's acceptable to be sentimental. It's acceptable to do generous things for others. It's acceptable to be frank and straightforwardly honest about how you feel about others, without need for eloquence or fanciness - without dressing it up. Generally, it's acceptable to be yourself and love others for being themselves. It's the whole "Christmas spirit" thing. It's really rather beautiful and moving and whatnot.

Except it's kind of lame that this is only acceptable at Christmastime. Most people only show their love, gratitude, faith, and hope around the holidays, and it's so silly. "It's Christmas" becomes an excuse to be like this only for two weeks out of the year. I know everyone else in the world laments this conditioning around Christmas every year, but no one ever does anything about it. Everyone makes resolutions at New Year's to be more patient or more loving or this or that and no one ever keeps them. It'd be nice if we actually did that for once. I don't know what I'm getting at. I'm just saying.

Christmas time on a cold December morning -
All is calm and the world is still asleep.
Christmas lights that have been caught without warning
Gently glitter on,
Stars to wish upon,
All the world is at peace.

Christmas time and the year will soon be leaving,
Cloaked in time till it's just a memory.
Christmas stays if we don't forget its meaning.
Days go quickly by,
Years they multiply,
And we go searching for thee.

And the dream is still alive
From that first December morning,
And it always will survive
As long as we can see
That the dreams we find in life
Are the dreams we tend to seek,
And Christmas has its promises to keep.

Christmas time, and the moments just beginning
From last night when we'd wished upon a star.
If our kindness this day is just pretending,
If we pretend long enough,
Never giving up,
It just might be who we are.

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Now playing: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Promises to Keep