Dear Editor,
Many aspects of celebrating Christmas — the powerful feelings of joy, unity, and belonging experienced during the holiday season — reflect a group energy, a shared connection, and a common purpose that spreads universally. During this season, I become more pensive and emotional.
I find myself prone to deeper reflection on life’s meanings, personal accomplishments and disappointments, the passage of time, and nostalgia. I more readily reach out to loved ones.
For many of us, family traditions and shared rituals reaffirm common values. Many group activities amplify shared emotions, strengthening a sense of “us” and a single sense of the sacred nature of this season. At Christmas, we recall the birth of Jesus Christ; we worship and empathize with those less fortunate. Christmas inspires people to come together, to bridge differences, and to foster a greater sense of community. The love we feel for our family propels us to give to others. The spirit of the season encourages outreach and understanding, both of which foster greater collective goodwill.
Christmas invokes a sense of gratitude that intrinsically improves our overall well-being. Demonstrations of goodwill and acts of kindness that predominate during Christmas seem both reinforcing and contagious, contributing to prevailing feelings of connection, joy, and belonging that inspire us to become better versions of ourselves. Acts of service and charity, along with acts of forgiveness and reconciliation, allow the spirit of Christmas to manifest in us all.
Despite Christmas being generally regarded as a joyful season, for many, it can be a time of heightened emotionality. Perhaps this is because the season’s cultural focus on togetherness exposes an innate sensitivity for social bonding, as well as how we evaluate the degree of intimacy we share with those we most care about. Christmas inevitably conjures a blending of sentimental longing, fond memories, and a bit of sadness over what is no more and forever irretrievable.
Christmas serves as an emotional bridge from our past to the present, where we may recognize a sense of belonging rooted in the power of love and community. That may be why so many of us relate, to the everyman character George Bailey in the 1946 Frank Capra film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” George embodies the idea that a life lived for others, through small acts of kindness, is a life of immense worth. May we all experience worthiness in 2026.
Peter Wibell, Rutledge