»Take a holiday from the Holiday,« the Christmas cruise ads whisper. »Escape the holiday hassle ... « and we're tempted because in a society geared to ever greater consumption, Christmas is taking on the look of a marathon that lasts longer every year. Almost before we have swallowed the last of the Thanksgiving turkey, the media reach us with the disquieting news that Santa Claus has already come to town. Then come the first carols, their message of goodwill followed by commercials extolling good buys.

The Juxtaposition carries its own message. We're being told that the more we spend, the better we'll feel. But the truth of our experience is quite different, for when we do spend more, we seem to feel less. And so each year the gap widens between the »holly, jolly Christmas« we want to have and the mixed emotions we're really experiencing. More and more we sense an underlying sadness, a mood that is only deepened by the Christmas music and symbols born long ago when people rejoiced in deeply felt relationships with God and the world of nature.

As modern Americans living the energy-rich »good life«, most of us no longer share the world view that sanctified those long-ago Christmases, for we no longer feel in living partnership with nature. By benefitting from its exploitation we have forfeited the conviction of being part of it - a belief that once gave meaning and perspective to human life. 

Yet it doesn't have to be like that. For those of us willing to look with changed eyes, a Christmas tree and other seasonal symbols of nature are still radiant with the meaning they've always had. And if we let them, in the bareness of winter they will remind us it is the natural world and its gifts that make our lives possible. And that only a new determination to live in harmony with natural laws can bring peace on earth and goodwill among men.

-Have a Natural Christmas '77