Hearts tend to be a bit softer this time of year, which is why charities tend to make their big push around Christmas time. For a short time, it but once a year, people seem able to open their homes and hearts a bit wider. These are good and beautiful things, worthy of rejoicing. For many, the joys of the holiday season are overshadowed by a sense of sadness and loss, by grief and pain, despair and depression. This month is especially hard on the widowed, the divorced, those who are grieving loss, those who live alone, those who are estranged from family, or who are far away from family and friends.
Some people literally hibernate for the holidays, or simply disappear until the hoopla is over.
The British have a tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is one example of a Christmas ghost story. Holiday cheer tends to last about as long as the Christmas tree we picked off the lot yesterday. This symbol of life in the midst of death has been dying from the moment the axe was laid to its roots. By Epiphany it will fit only for burning.