Christmas season offers us a glimmer of hope

As Christmas rolls around the corner in a couple of weeks, I like to believe the power of hope fills our lives.

Hope is the little voice of determination that drives us. We face the day knowing that we can get things done – like shopping for all those difficult people on your Christmas shopping list.

Hope is visible each and every day in our own lives.

It’s the child who waits by the door each day for his parents to return home from work. Growing up, I remember waiting at the kitchen table for my dad to come in from chores so we could share our evening family meal together.

Hope can be seen in a nursing home patient waiting for a visit from a loved one.

During my college days, I worked in a local nursing home and remember residents anxiously waiting for loved ones to arrive for their annual holiday visit.

Despite all of our misgivings, shortcomings and we still like to believe that all people are basically good because there is hope.

Hope reflects itself from favorite family photographs or the aroma of holiday goodies taken straight from the grandma’s, mom’s or our own ovens.

Hope can be seen in the twinkle of lights from one of Socorro County’s beautifully decorated homes, around our town’s Plaza or in one of the many Christmas cards we mail or receive. (FYI: I mailed out 85 greeting cards to friends and family on Monday).

Whether it’s a joyous scream, happy youth playing outside, or the roar of the crowd at a sporting event, hope lives in the lives of our children.

Remember the anticipating of watching a basketball rip through the nets as the buzzer sounded to end the game? That’s what I’d call hope in action.

We all remember what hope is?

It’s those daily prayers our parents recite hoping that we’ll grow up into respectable adults. It’s young girls waiting for someone to ask them to their very first dance or a young man fidgeting about making the first call to ask a young woman out on a date … and hoping she says ‘yes.’

Hope is central to our daily lives. It makes all things questionable yet bearable.

As children, we first learn to hope when we write or share with Santa Claus our Christmas wish list. Young parents depend on hope every time their teenager goes out for the night.

Recessions and depressions have depended upon hope – as have the loss of a loved one, broken marriages and unfilled promises.

Christmas is truly about hope. It was born in a manager.

It’s reborn every year during church or school Christmas programs, the singing of Christmas carols, or the visiting of relatives and friends during the holidays. Without hope, life would have no reason.

Isn’t it wonderful that Christmas is a time dedicated to hope and renewal?

Here’s wishing all of wonderful family of readers an “Extra, Extra” Christmas season dedicated to the renewal of hope.