If you’ve been to your local mall or downtown shopping area in the past few days, you don’t need a calendar to let you know what time of the year this is. The rush to find suitable decorations and gifts (hopefully at bargain prices) is an obvious indicator that this is the time of the year when three major joyous holidays are observed in close proximity to one another: Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa.

Hanukkah is already underway and will overlap Christmas on Sunday, December 25th, before concluding the following day – which also happens to be the first day of Kwanzaa. It’s a joyous time. While Hanukkah and Christmas mark historic religious events, all three of the holidays have strong cultural and community-wide traditions associated with them.

One of the beauties of having the three holidays so close together is that it gives everyone a chance to experience the joy of your specific holiday while recognizing that others are also experiencing happiness and the sharing of joy with others – while hopefully not amassing a lot of debt to do so.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has cut down on the number of in-person celebrations, as there always seems to be a Covid surge around the holidays, I have always enjoyed the fact that the holiday season seems to be a time for mutual respect – even when it comes to holiday parties. Because the party aspect is often dissociated from the religious messages of the specific holidays, people generally feel comfortable in inviting a diverse group of individuals to their parties, as well as accepting invitations from people who don’t look or worship like them. And, of course, New Year celebrations – parties, parades, etc. – are also generally inclusive non-religious affairs.

The nature of the holiday season sensitizes us to be respectful of others who may not share our religion or cultural background, and it invites us to care about others as we learn more about them and what they celebrate. If it weren’t for the costs involved, it would be great to extend the spirit of the holiday season throughout the year.

Although I’m not big on making New Year’s resolutions, I do think that it would be particularly worthwhile to make one particular resolution – and resolve to take the spirit of respect and caring that occurs during the holiday season, and do our part to perpetuate it throughout the year.

HAPPY HANUKKAH; MERRY CHRISTMAS; HAPPY KWANZAA.

Ron Kaiser, Ph.D. Psychologist, Educator, Author, Podcaster

Ron Kaiser, Ph.D., is a positive health psychologist, coach, author, podcaster, educator, consultant, and speaker. He has been in practice for more than five decades, including 25 years as Director of Psychology at the world-famous Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University. As an innovative thought leader in the field, he has developed the concepts of THE MENTAL HEALTH GYM, GOAL-ACHIEVING PSYCHOTHERAPY (GAP), THE TYPE P PERSONALITY, and REJUVENAGING®.