Love is all around

This holiday celebrate the many examples, big and small, right in our communities

The Christmas pressure is real. Many believe that today — which in Christianity honors the birth of Christ some 2,000 years ago — we should aspire to celebrate love, selflessness and self-sacrifice.

For most of us, a little self-introspection is all it takes to see what a tough goal that can be to achieve.

Especially this time of year — while many look forward to Christmas as a time to gather and celebrate with family and friends, for others it’s an emotional minefield of a season that is to be navigated rather than enjoyed. And there are plenty of New Mexicans who don’t celebrate Christmas at all and spend the growing number of months full of pre-Christmas marketing madness feeling like the odd ones out.

Yet all should be able to agree love and selflessness are worth celebrating regardless of creed, belief or season. It’s worth taking the time today to think — even for a moment — of those people who give us the best examples. And it is encouraging that we don’t have to look far.

At 18, Mackenzie Sydow is shouldering a responsibility many of us would falter under at twice her age. As reporter Glen Rosales wrote in the Dec. 20 Journal, the Sandia High School senior became her little brother’s primary caregiver earlier this month after the sudden death of her father, just three years after the sudden death of her mother. It would be a lot to ask of any 18-year-old, but there’s another complication: Sydow’s 16-year-old brother is non-verbally autistic and depends on her significantly for all his needs.

Sydow’s reaction to what she terms a tough hand of cards? “It could be a lot worse.”

It’s a far grimmer reality than you’ll find in the plot of any Hallmark movie, but that’s selflessness. That’s self-sacrifice. That’s love.

On a smaller scale, there’s long-suffering Phylis and Russ Thorson, who have had Baby Jesus stolen from their front yard Nativity scene three of the past four years. As Journal columnist Joline Gutierrez Krueger wrote Dec. 18, the couple’s faith has been rewarded in two of those years by the return of Jesus some time after the theft.

As for the year the baby stayed away from their manger?

Phylis says “whoever took it, I hope they now have

Jesus in their hearts, not just in the statue. Perhaps they needed Jesus more.” This year, the thieves included a note: “Dear Russ and Phylis, This letter was written to offer the deepest apology one could muster. This action wasn’t done out of malice or prejudice and had no political ethnic or religious reasons. It began as a prank that went too far. Although words can only go so far hopefully you can find it in your hearts to forgive such acts. Again. The deepest and most sincere apologies. God bless and have a Merry Christmas.”

Stepping up to admit a wrong and then right it — and perhaps in this case raising children to do that — that’s love.

The couple told Gutierrez Krueger they bear the apologetic prankster no grudge, choosing instead to forgive. That’s love.

And it’s important to remember that, while many of us enjoy today at home or with our families, some number of police, firefighters, nurses, doctors, emergency dispatchers, retailers and others are even at this moment giving up a day off to make sure the rest of us are well cared for. That’s love, too.

So for those who feel they can’t take the holiday pressure, give yourself a break. Look around you for examples of love and selflessness in your life and simply take time to appreciate them. Because that should be so much more than Christmas. That’s what makes a family, a neighborhood, a community.

Merry Christmas.