Gratitude, Holiday Tables And Mercy

The holidays are a time of traditions.

Macy’s has a Thanksgiving parade. Washington DC has the national Christmas tree lighting. A former boss decorates her yard in honor of the Jewish Festival Of Lights-Hanukkah. Another holds her annual Winter Solstice Snow Party.

During the holidays, the Velvet Chainsaw Consulting team turns to thanks and gratitude. We are extremely grateful for your continued readership and support. We wish you and yours a joyful season and fantastic New Year.

America’s Complex Holiday Season

America’s Holiday Season—a celebration of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Kwanza, Three Kings Day and New Year Celebrations–has become a complex, highly charged emotional moment. Families, food, football, festivals, shopping, parties, presents, faith, traditions, year-end job worries, depression, alcohol and loneliness all collide.

The sweetness of possibility meets the sourness of the unresolved. A new year doesn’t quite escape yesteryears.

The hope of over the river and through the woods meets the reality of confusing burdens like food to prepare, family squabbles to endure, and the aches and yearnings that any holiday inspires.

Children float free of such ambiguities. Most of us would pay dearly for a return to innocence. When food just appeared, gifts abounded and the snarling of extended family didn’t penetrate our self-absorption.

We wish for unconditional love. We yearn for hugs, smiles and laughter that aren’t clouded by anything else we bring to our feast tables. We just want to share a meal with loved ones and friends full of honesty, love and compassion.

A Holiday Wish For You And Yours

So it is at our holiday tables. In the midst of our collisions, mercy extends a hand. Even as we ache for newness and yet drift into oldness, we break bread together. The Universe brings food to our table that we cannot bring ourselves, a meal of extravagant love.

As this year’s holiday season continues, we don’t pray for a magical vanishing of every ambiguity. We just pray that at our table, and at whatever table this coming year sets for you, we will see mercy among us. And that we will all know and feel that we are loved.

Happy Holidays from the Velvet Chainsaw Consulting Team

Dave, Donna, Jeff, Michele, Sarah and Wendy.

Repurposed from a 2010 Holiday post.