Today is December 18th and we are now officially one week away from Christmas. Stores are hopping, cashier lines are long, mall parking lots are near impossible to find a place to park and excitement is building in the minds of most children.

Now don’t get me wrong, the positive impact that Christmas can have on a child is very powerful and may very well be one of the reasons why western culture has such a solid foundation in “Hopes and Dreams.”

But was it really the act of the three wise men that we were to emulate most on this the birth of Christianity’s greatest prophet. Well let’s look at it. The act of the wise men was a sign of respect and goodwill; in fact back in those days’ it was expected to offer gifts to people of power. Therefore if we break it down, when we exchange gifts with our family and friends we too are emulating in our own small symbolic way an act of respect and goodwill towards our family and friends.

So that’s pretty good, but is there more? Well certainly there are additional positive spin-offs associated with the season of goodwill, such as gifts to charitable foundations, to the poor and to the homeless. But I still don’t think that was the primary intent of this day, even if all of the aforementioned are pretty darn good secondary objectives.

For me Christmas is a time to reflect back upon the acts of Christianity’s greatest prophet, what he practiced and what he preached. Whether a person is Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or whatever the teachings of Jesus have a great deal to offer to all mankind. For me the following stands out at this time of year:

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Jesus

There is no better time than today to realize that it is our judgment of others that creates our greatest pain and downfalls. It is our egos that cause us our greatest harm and separate us from others, filling our minds with false illusions of grandeur, supremacy and the need to be right at all costs.

We all have someone we have judged and through that judgment created harm and possibly separated a relationship. So set your ego aside, reach out and make amends without needing anything in return. If we do this unconditionally from the core of our hearts this holiday season will certainly be filled with the true magic of Christmas.

So let this holiday season be the one where your gifts are not purely materialistic, but also from the willingness to humble yourself as you seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted, to understand, than to be understood, to love, than to be loved and where by your act of forgiveness returns to you the grace that you have been forgiven.