December 23, 2025- I always enjoy doing our annual segment on Christmas. Christmas is a special time for me as a Christian along with 2 billion other persons. It is a time for humility as one realizes how much better they could be by trying to improve themselves not out of guilt but out of desire to be more like the Prince of Peace,Jesus Christ,and focusing on treating others as you would have them treat you and try to enhance themselves to be better persons. We all fail at times. Let Christmas be a time to work at being the best we can be and eliminate behaviors that are inconsistent with being a Christian. I also believe one does not need to be a Christian to enjoy Christmas. I can certainly appreciate and respect Hanukkah,Ramadan and other religious holidays that are not Christian. To me, the ongoing Christmas spirit for everyone is best summed up by the biblical golden rule: “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” My point here is that Christ really was the Prince of Peace. He came not to kill and destroy, but rather to offer a road to eternity for those who accepted him as their savior and were willing to live a life dedicated to him. To me, the Christmas spirit is a time that we do act out of love, caring and a commitment to human beings and try to do whatever we can to advance them. It also is true a person can be a Hindi, Jew, Muslim, secular humanist or whatever one might want to be and still accept Christ as the Prince of Peace and somebody who came to the world to offer humankind a strong moral way to live and help others. This is unfortunately often lost at a time when people get overwhelmed with buying and giving gifts, meeting with family members they really do not want to meet with and being forced into social settings again with persons they do not care for and would not be with, but need to due to family or work expectations. If in one of those situations, my advice is to be pleasant and do what one has to do as often happens during Christmas and the holidays. Try to always remember what the purpose of Christmas is as we celebrate either the Lord and Savior for Christians or a good human being offering all of us a roadmap to being a better human being on earth. It also is a time as we have discussed before where the Hallmark Movies can bring some tears to the eyes as they show how love can be kind during the Christmas time. I particularly like the Hallmark Movie, “Finding Christmas Father”. It also is a time to think of the always popular “Christmas Carol” written in 1843 by Charles Dickens, where Ebeneezer Scrooge ends up being a good person and looks after Tiny Tim and his family during and after Christmas. My final comments are that you enjoy the spirit of Christmas and think of Christ as either your Savior or a wonderful human being who came forward to offer peace and tranquility to persons who are willing to focus on helping others and being the best they can be as human beings. Also,do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed by persons who claim to be Christians but do not behave as Christians should or the negative appropriation that comes from the commercialization of Christmas.