Wishes & Blessings

I was preparing Christmas cards and barreling through the process of signing many very quickly.  Somewhere in that process I had a moment of consciousness where I stopped to second-guess what I was writing.  I realized there were three or four variations of valedictions which I was cycling through.    They ranged from simply "Merry Christmas" to "Wishing you a Merry Christmas" to "Merry Christmas & Happy New Year" to "Blessings at Christmas"....  You get the idea.  I didn't have a rationale for who got which valediction, at least not a conscious rationale.

When that thought entered my consciousness it lodged firmly enough to stay with me, a niggly in my head, that kept popping up.  Irritating little thought it was and is.  Irritating enough that I guess I need to write about it.  The underlying questions are how does one chose the valediction to use and is there a criteria for selecting a particular valediction for a specific recipient?  Yes, in my spare time recently I have been burning brain cells on these two relevant questions.

Initially, I thought the answer to both questions was "it is somewhat random".  But that's not entirely true.  I have made a very conscious decision never to sign any of my Christmas cards with "Happy holidays", so that is step one on the decision tree.  "Christmas" with a capital "C" always needs to be part of the valediction.  I love "Merry Christmas" because just writing the word "merry" makes me smile.  What really gets me is the fact that I was okay with just "Wishing" for some recipients and willing to offer a "Blessing" to others.

Wishing is weak, it is the equivalent of extending an invitation to visit sometime.  Everyone knows that wishing doesn't make it so, and an invitation needs to have a date and time or it doesn't happen.  Blessing on the other hand, connects me to the recipient on a spiritual level even as the words trail off the ink tip of my pen.  As I unravelled those thoughts I realized that I needed to be far more intentional about signing my cards.


Merry Christmas from the swake!

May you experience the
Blessings of Christmas
& the wonder of miracles.

May you have moments to 
Sit in the silence and light of the tree
& to reflect on God's love for you.

May you hear the gifts of song
In the Christmas carols around you.

May you seize opportunities to 
Bless others this Christmas.







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