How are people celebrating or preparing for Christmas this year?
Are you aware of a change in the season - Advent as the season when we celebrate Christ's birth?
Does Christmas have a particular impact on how you think about or experience God?

I ask this because for the first year ever I have not looked forward to Christmas - I don't know if its because I've been very busy at work and have been fighting another battle with depression. Anyway, I picked up a book in a charity shop called In Search of .....The Real Spirit of Christmas, and I've been leafing through it in the hope of some 'magic'. I'm going to try some of the things they suggest - like rereading the gospel of Christ's birth and getting involved that way.

I don't know if its because I'm not a regular church goer - despite my strong faith, so am not part of the excitement of church preparations/services

Maybe having turned 40 this year I'm also becoming a grumpy and middle aged
FrancesB

Frances, Advent isn't about celebrating Christ's birth, but of anticipating the coming of God in our midst. See http://internetpadre.com/Christmas/advent.html for some good discussion and resources.

In our family, we don't sing Christmas carols until Christmas day. We light our Advent wreath and sing Advent hymns before meals. I use the Advent readings from the Church's Lectionary for my prayer, and try to get in touch with my longing for God. I also stay out of the Christmas consumer rat-race as much as possible, even refraining from doing Christmas cards; we do a yearly newsletter sometime in January instead. That all seems to help keep the spirit of the season alive for me.

Check out some of the links from the site above. Maybe there can be a little more magic to the season. Since you're only 40 years young, I'm sure there's hope for you.

I ask this because for the first year ever I have not looked forward to Christmas - I don't know if its because I've been very busy at work and have been fighting another battle with depression. Anyway, I picked up a book in a charity shop called In Search of .....The Real Spirit of Christmas, and I've been leafing through it in the hope of some 'magic'. I'm going to try some of the things they suggest - like rereading the gospel of Christ's birth and getting involved that way.

I don't know if its because I'm not a regular church goer - despite my strong faith, so am not part of the excitement of church preparations/services

FrancesB, I symbolically take you in my arms and hold you in my heart. You just described me to a tee�at least for the last, say, 30 years.

I loved Christmas as a child. It was full of all kinds of light and life and magic. And on another thread you may have read about my cry-baby experience of coming to tears upon seeing Christmas lights. I do think it was very fully the child inside of me that reacted that way. The adult that has been layered on since then has grown cold, disillusioned, somewhat hopeless, and even cynical. And I realize there is absolutely nothing � nothing � that I can layer over my adult self that will fix this. No amount of decorations, presents, tinsel, garland, candy, or even eggnog (and, indeed, THAT'S saying something) will bring up, or back, that Christmas Spirit, although, even in all those bad year I could, at least for a few moments, be devastatingly brought to emotion by, say, the end of "A Christmas Carol". Even the end of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" could be overwhelmingly emotional. So I recognized that there was still that spark in there, but that pilot-light flame never did seem to leap out further and, in a sense, set my life on fire with the Christmas Spirit in total.

All I can recommend to do is to return to simple, like Phil said. Return to simplicity. Light one single candle and pray. Take a walk in the crisp, cold of the midnight air when all is calm, all is bright. You will find it. I guarantee you, FrancesB. You will find it.

That's no cry baby - that's honest, raw emotion!

Simplicity is probably the key. I've posted elsewhere that I'm attracted to the monastic tradition, particularly the Franciscans, they have a long tradition of simplicity.

Our dog loves late night walks (and early morning ones, just about any walk come to think of it!)

FrancesB