christmas in the heart

The W.T. Ellis quote in my photo above is one of my favorite Christmas quotes. I love Christmas. Everyone who knows me knows I love Christmas.

Decorating the house for the holidays and having friends and family in throughout the season is just one of the nicer things you can do I think. It doesn’t have to be fancy, everyone doesn’t have to be dressed up all the time, it’s the act of being together.

This past Friday evening I hosted a ladies’ open house and a friend brought her trunk show to town from New England. A lot of friends old and new, and a couple of friend surprises including a friend I had not seen in a few years. We live enough distance apart and the past few years have been busy enough that time just went by. It was so amazing to see her and made it really feel like the Christmas season was beginning.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the country radio stations are removing beloved Christmas songs from radio playlists. Yes seriously. Star 102 in Cleveland has removed “Baby it’s Cold Outside” because of the #metoo movement.

Yes, for real. This song was written in 1944 by Frank Loesser for his wife for the two of them to sing together. As a duet. It is NOT the Sugar Plum Fairy date rape anthem. The song was also in the 1949 film “Neptune’s Daughter, which made it even more popular.

It’s ridiculous that this song is being targeted. It’s like everything old is new again and we are back to book burnings, except now they are Christmas song burnings. In 2015 there was an article in The National Review about potentially offensive Christmas song lyrics.

Come on people! It’s bad enough sometimes you don’t feel like you can say Merry Christmas that you must say Happy Holidays even if Christmas is the holiday you celebrate. And no, I am not getting into the whole “putting the Christ back in Christmas” argument because to me that’s like making someone accept your religious beliefs at the expense of their own.

What I’m saying is can’t we just enjoy the Christmas season without some sort of controversy every single year?

Christmas is a magical time of year, but I accept it’s hard for a lot of people. But maybe the season would be less hard if we just took a step back and enjoyed it?

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and peaceful Christmas and holiday season.