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Winston W. Wiley| Telegram & Gazette

Happy Hannukah to the Jewish community as the 8-day observance of the Festival of Lights begins at sunset Sunday.

The winters religious and cultural holidays are always an exciting way to close out the year. They bring the needed space and environment for reflection and to connect with family and friends before embarking on the adventures of the coming year.

But I have to admit Im one of those people put off by Christmas encroaching on the fall season earlier and earlier every year. I dont want to hear Christmas songs, see Christmas displays or watch Christmas movies before the time is right. The period feels like a season unto itself and foreign when it strays too deep into other seasons.

Despite Christmas music blaring in area stores and advertisements on TV airwaves since at least two weeks before Halloween, the leftover Thanksgiving turkey signals the winter holiday season is underway in earnest. Christmas lights and decorations began dotting homes and businesses in early November and multiplied in neighborhoods across the city as the month progressed. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, starts the shopping frenzy that primes the economic engine of Christmas commercialism and Cyber Monday promises to rev it into high gear.

Such are the superficial trappings of Christmas. But, lets focus on the more substantive ones, the ones that symbolize the true meaning and spirit of the season and the ones that every year we manage to undermine through our disregard for one another.

In that spirit, I have a challenge for Worcester area residents. Lets try harder this year to emulate the person whose birthwere supposed to be observing. With political divisions growing wider and deeper by the day, the pandemic raging with no apparent end in sight, gas and consumer price increases straining household budgets and supply chain issues threatening to upend parents efforts to deliver on those coveted toys, lets strive to give our fellow Americans the gifts of civility and compassion. If a world at war could suspend hostilities for a Christmas truce in 1914, surely one month of peace among neighbors is possible.

I was struck by a Letter to the Editor I read the other day in which Scott Davis recounts a recent experience with a stranger at a Westborough coffee and sandwich shop. He said he held the door for a woman who had reached the entrance about the same time. Once through the first door, she offered to hold the second door to let Davis go so he would not lose his rightful place in line. He insisted she go ahead. When he finally reached the counter to place his order, he was pleasantly surprised to find she had left money with the cashier toward his order.

Kindness is contagious, but we seem to be mired in the opposite. With everything else happening, the mad pace of the holiday season is unlikely to help matters.

Here are a couple of ideas to consider and triggers to watch out for to help smooth some rough patches.

Recognize the annual War on Christmas battle cry for what it is: a myth. Christmas remains the countys favorite national holiday, celebrated by more than 85 percent of the nation. Among the obvious holidays in the Happy Holidays greeting, Christmas is the elephant in the room. What has been mischaracterized as a war is little more than a marketing strategy to be more inclusive and boost the bottomlines of corporations, not necessarily in that order.

And when individuals use the generic greeting, we mean no disrespect. Im specific only with people I know or when I have a reasonably good idea which holiday they observe. Most people I know would rather be greeted with a sincere, Happy Holidays, than an insincere Merry Christmas. If every Merry Christmas utterance is nothing more than a shot fired in a mini-battle against political correctness, than the greeting is really more for the well-wishers benefit than the person being wished well.

Santa Claus is another area of potential conflict in the Christmas culture wars. Can St. Nick be Black? Disney and Mondelez International seem to think so. Disney plans to feature a Black Santa Claus in Christmas celebrations at both its Disneyworld and Disneyland resorts this year. Mondelez, parent company of Nabisco and maker of the worlds most popular cookie, features a Black Santa in a U.S. television advertisement for Oreos.

Santa Claus is a concept, not a person, whose giving and caring qualities are found in people all over the world.

Were pretty good at the giving, as evidenced by the tons of gifts exchanged every year. Lets work a little harder at the caring. If we can get through this holiday season on our best behavior, a year-round Christmas season might be a good thing.

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Winston W. Wiley: Were pretty good at giving, but need to work harder at caring - Worcester Telegram