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December - Month of Celebration and Change

Many people around the world celebrate a worldwide religious or cultural holiday in December. This holiday may be the a version of Christmas, the Jewish Hanukkah, it may be Kwanzaa or a pagan or Wiccan Yule / midwinter celebration. To top it off, there is the world-wide counting down to midnight on December 31st and the communal celebrations of the start of the new year.

Every person who celebrates a holiday in December will have a different reason for doing so. Some may celebrate for religious or religion-based reasons. Some enjoy the holidays in a secular way. Some enjoy any excuse to go shopping. Some enjoy the feeling of celebrating with others and the sense of community that it brings. Some commemorate the middle of winter and the changes that will bring. Some may simply go along with what others do and celebrate only because of chance or coincidence.

No matter how or what one celebrates - What matters is that all across the world, people are doing the same thing in December. They are celebrating. It doesn't matter how they celebrate or why or where or what for because what matters is not their words or their actions but simply their intent.

All together, in the same relatively short timespan, people all around the world are choosing to celebrate. They choose to send goodwill around the world, to be joyful and merry and give gifts and entertain and love those around them. That shared sense of love and goodwill is what makes December so very special to me.

I don't celebrate Christmas with the Christians or Hanukkah with the Jews. I don't celebrate with the Wiccans or the pagans or with any group, in all honesty. I celebrate my own way by enjoying the feasting of others around me and being thankful for all the love, the feasting, the happy people and the diversity around me. Realising this, I also realised that I wanted to write this feeling down and write about it and examine it as a concept. Because this how I want to finish 2012 and start 2013 - by enjoying the celebrations of those around me and celebrating my own way with my loved ones.

Happy December to you all!

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