What a strange, challenging holiday season this one will be! We can’t be with our families, can’t hug our parents, grandparents, friends, even as they lie alone and ill… What’s to be jolly about?

But is’t that exactly what Christmas is for? 

This year we should embrace this holiday more than ever before! This bleakest time of year, when days are shortest and growing things appear dead, when so many thousands of us will never see another Christmas season — when could we need a glimmer of hope more?

Christmas is hope, the gift of expectation. Of waiting. We wait for the re-birth of what happened so long ago. We hope we’ll get presents, and that our loved one will come home from the hospital. We hope the days will get longer, and that the relentless virus will weaken and disappear. We hope people will realize how much we need to love each other instead of coveting and destroying. We hope love will prevail.

So much hope! Enough to make anyone jolly.