Starbucks has been criticized once again for poor cup colour. Strange, fat men sit in thrones waiting to get their pictures taken. Crazed parents run through malls scratching items off their children’s lists. Christmas jingles are playing on the radio and in grocery stores and shopping centres. The snow has yet to come, but the cold is approaching with haste. Winter is coming.

Christmas is coming.

Now I can tell you, since I trust you, that I’m not a religious person. I know, I know, it may come to you as a shock due to my Sunday socks – my holy socks. Socks with holes in them. That’s what my mother always called them.

Anyhow, I’m not saying that I do not believe in a God or a higher power. I’m just not certain. It does not make me a bad person. I’m not going to steal, kill, or commit adultery with your wife because we don’t pray the same, if at all.

I do, however, celebrate Christmas. So I will say it, Merry Christmas. Can I get an Amen?

Now, I have been practicing Agnosticism for many years; 25 to be precise. I was interested in Christianity and Catholicism when I was younger and made it a point to visit the church in order to better understand the word of the lord. However, as a young child I could not understand many of the stories and lore. But I still loved the holidays.

Christmas derived from religion but has become a holiday for anyone to enjoy due to consumerism.

When I ask you what Christmas means, what do you think? I know you may say that it’s Jesus’s birthday, or that it’s a consumerist holiday. You might even say that Christmas means presents. Or a strange, fat man in a red suit delivering presents on a magical sleigh with flying reindeer.

None of those are the meaning of Christmas. It is not as difficult as the question of life and we do not need to make it that complicated. Christmas is about family. The birth of your saviour may not be the birth of my own but he is human which makes him part of the family.

In recent years, Christmas has been commercialized as a holiday in effort to make mass amounts of cash. Which does work, because we go out and buy things that are not needed for our loved ones only to realize on Christmas Day that we’re receiving as well.

Personally, I never feel good about receiving gifts on Christmas. All I can think of is the amount time and money that was spent in order to purchase the gift. It’s not just the time buying and wrapping, but the time spent at work making the money to purchase the gift.

I can tell you that’s not what Christmas is about.

Christmas is about family. If you remember back to the Christmas story about the birth of Jesus Christ, it was three kings who gave Jesus presents. The little drummer boy played him a song on his drum. Be the little drummer boy. Give what you can. The best gift of all is your love and your time.