With Christmas just around the corner I began to think about how some people do not have a basic awareness of the true meaning and spirit of Christmas. I think about how Christmas has been commercialized and taken on a life of it's own.I thought about the frenzy over Black Friday and all the media hype. The media is one of the strongest tools used to try to control our awareness at any given time.

The things we do as humans! We seem to put a lot of effort and importance on the wrong things. What about the people in New York who lost everything in a flash of a moment. My belief is material things they come and they go. If we would put as much energy in our relationships, our families or even ourselves, I believe we would reap greater rewards.

I recently had an experience that brought my awareness back into focus.I was walking home from the corner store, just one of my ways of getting some exercise in my day, and a guy walking in my same direction quickly passed me. A little bit down the sidewalk he turned around and asked me for a cigarette. I'm not a smoker, but my response was "you don't have money for cigarettes?" His response to me was ma'am can I be honest with you? I said.....please.

He began to tell me how he spent his last ten dollars on liquor and he is an ex drug dealer and he is trying to transition into a legal life style. His father was a drug dealer and father of five children and how his mother would have him shop lift food as a little boy and this was the only lifestyle he knew. I assured him he could do it and to hang in there. He said his main concern was his little boy's Christmas, who is three years old. So, I told him let me tell you about the best Christmas I had as a little girl was when I received one rag doll.

I shared with him that my dad was a hard working self employed mechanic of five children. He didn't do any illegal stuff, just a hard working mechanic by trade. I told him how my sister and myself absolutely loved those rag dolls. Well, later on in life my mother told us the story behind the rag dolls. She said money was tight with no money for Christmas. My dad was working late one night and somebody stopped by the shop selling the dolls.....he bought two. I told him not to get caught up in the frenzy of Christmas, it's not in the quantity but it's in the love or the spirit of the gift. So, I told him to have a goal of buying one affordable gift from his heart. Well, we parted one another with words of blessings to each other's households.

But, the thing I was left with was a true reminder of what Christmas is all about. My awareness was brought back into focus. Christmas is about peace, peace within ourselves, Joy, the joy of just being, and most of all LOVE!