I’ve always loved seeing, reading about, imagining what were known as Christmas revels. Wild dancing, feasting, drinking, firelight, yule logs and drafty manors. The rhythmic thump of feet hitting the floor in intricate country and court dances.

Those people worrying today about putting the Christ back in Christmas as in the olden days maybe should understand much of Christian revelry is ancient and interfaith (if by interfaith, we understand that every tradition that touched it put its stamp on it.).

I’m a Unitarian Universalist, so plurality delights rather than threatens me. The more the merrier. What do you know from your searching? And believe me I get it. I am grateful for the understanding and the wonder that the birth of a small babe brings. Whether or not you believe more about that babe, it’s astonishing that the birth calls the world to a halt.

But in the cold and the dark, people gather and people dance. In the face of a dying year, people revel in the life that flows through them. Dancing in the face of death. Demanding the stories that remind us that life continues beyond us. And yes, celebrating babies. (and, perhaps, making them? Baby it IS cold out there!)

So, revel. Enjoy. Revel in the possibilities. Revel in the Peace. Revel perhaps for Peace. Remember all the wonderful things that make life worth living. And then live!