At this point, it is safe to say that we are in the Christmas season.

Depending on your age, financial status and where you live internationally, this time of the year could be exciting, exasperating, impoverishing or depressing. Interesting how the same thing can be so different to so many people.

Many who know me have lovingly(?) called me Scrooge at this time of year. I’ve found Christmas to be frustrating (and irritating) because of the commercial emphasis. I’m not telling you anything you’ve not heard before — even the most jaded Christmas shopper will admit that the excess has gone to extremes unimaginable just a few years ago. But, as a true Scroogian, it has brought many a “Bah! Humbug!” to my lips over the years. And this much to the exasperation of many in my sphere of influence.

What should be a time of family, friends and even spiritual renewal has become a competition and a marathon. Who can buy the best/most expensive/most impressive gift? The gift I bought you is better than the one you bought me. I’ll keep gifts on hand in the event that someone who I didn’t expect gives me one and I then need to give them one. On and on you could go, but you get the point.

Where’s Bob Cratchit to berat when you need him?!

Then, all at once, it’s over. Just like that. Done. Gone.

Nature teaches us that a void or vaccum is abhorred and rushes in to fill it. So it is on Christmas day. All the baggage that was carried to that day evaporates and a sense of melancholy rushes in. All we have to look forward to is the really cold weather that will begin in January and Feburary. Sigh…

I’m trying to change that for myself. It’s a journey I’ve been on for the last several years.

Amazingly, it hasn’t been easy or simple. Interestingly, I’m met with strong resistance.

It is as though I am not allowed to try to escape the commercial for the spiritual because I make others uncomfortable when I do that. It is easy to say “whatever” and go about my quest; but I think that part of my journey is to help others begin the same process.

Each year I do a little better, go a little further. Each year I find a few “hard core” Christmas addicts who begin to look at the event differently, almost as one who’s been in a stupor coming out of a daze.

Just like the real Scrooge who sees his own tombstone before awakening to find it is Christmas morning and has a chance to repent and change his fate, so it is with them. When I see this, if you catch me at the right moment, you might see a little smile trying to breakout on these scrooge-like lips of mine.