December 24, 2025
Happy holidays to you all, however you celebrate...or don’t.
We are some of the lucky ones this year, with a roof over our heads, food on the table, and family and friends close to hand. We are blessed.
But it has not always been this way.
For those struggling this holiday season, a reminder, if it helps, that Christmas marks the time when the light starts to come back.
[Photo by Buddy Poland.]
It’s now 3:29 here in the afternoon of Dec. 25 in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan.
That’s early after midnight, beginning Christmas day in Heather’s Maine.
Last night, many kids gathered here for a video screening of “The Polar Express” – a great success, for the movie and the abundant popcorn they had.
They all understood the poor kid, Billy, who kept to himself through the early parts of the trip north – but awakened to learn the values of friendship. Many kids on that train north in that Chris Van Allsburg story, that Robert Zemeckis/Tom Hanks film learned key human lessons, fitting for the day celebrating the birth of that Nazarene of 2,000 years ago who taught the similarly good lessons then for seeing and aiding the poor, and comforting migrants, immigrants, and those ostracized by the stereotyping by the rich and powerful of that day.
Decent people then as now learn how to be open to others. And the indecent seem uniformly – any era – full of angers, blind rage at “others” they see only by group labels, and the poisoning their hatreds lead them into.
Our news today teems with how our most hateful crave but money/power in a story that just repeats as it always has. But the kids here who saw “The Polar Express,” different: all beautiful, good-humored, delightful as individuals also always are, as we know who may be given to see even some grace.
May the spirit of kindness spread.