My family doesn't celebrate Christmas. The way I imagine it, my parents immigrated to this country and someone had to explain to them why so many people didn't have to work (earn money) on this day. By the time I reached an age of consciousness/memory, the gift giving idea had sunk in.

My childhood memories include plastic Christmas trees with lights, ornaments, and a flashing star on top, and yes, presents under the tree to be opened on Christmas morning. I don't remember the gifts coming from parents. The extent that my parents gave us gifts was in the form of money, but at that young age, I doubt they were putting cold hard cash in our hands to any appreciable appreciation.

The vague fuzzy memories I do have are of me and my brothers buying gifts for each other. Family excursions to the malls (this was New Jersey, folks), getting money from "mom", and buying toys or games or whatever kids like for each other and trying to keep from seeing what we were getting each other.

We would wrap the gifts in wrapping paper or Sunday comics and put them under the tree. Yea, an inexplicably touching scene, considering that we fought like dogs the rest of the year round. No, we fought, but we had the seeds of tight sibling . . . appreciation.

These are childhood memories, so I'm sure they're not accurate, and I'm even more sure they would conflict with my brothers' memories. I'm thinking that Christmases were the primary source of our games and toys and I'm thinking my parents used Christmas as an excuse not to buy us games or toys for the rest of the year, after all, we knew better what we wanted, right?

So it was all there. My parents provided and we had the tree, we had the gifts, we had the anticipation, and we had the waking up early for the reward on Christmas morning. The only specific Christmas I remember was one when I was really sick, it may have been asthma, and my brother Bob doing something to take care of me, but I can't remember what.

I don't remember when it stopped. I don't think I've even been in New Jersey for Christmas for the past 10 years. I have no recollection what Christmas was about with family through high school and college. It was more about friends then. Again, I might be wrong.

And now?

I'm sorry, but Christmas for me is a day of reflection, mostly cynical about much of what's wrong with the world. A day to hunker down and silently endure. The rampant commercialization and hypocrisy is just sickening.

I appreciate the significance of Jesus's birth . . . except that no one has refuted to my satisfaction the assertion that the historical Jesus was born sometime during the late Summer, and that Jesus having been born on December 25 is a bit of revisionist history performed to correspond with mid-Winters festivals of northern latitude countries.

My understanding is that festivals and celebrations occured around the Winter Solstice to help people get through dark, depressing Winter months. Holiday depression and suicide? It has little to do with the holidays, but has everything to do with the weather.

I also appreciate the season of goodwill and harmony, but then I find myself disheartened by why that doesn't exist all year round. Goodwill and harmony? Have you been in the feeding frenzy of holiday shoppers recently?

I know my feelings are out of step with most people. It's probably why I don't have any friends. But it doesn't stop me from wishing well for all humankind. It doesn't stop certain Christmas melodies from getting to me (some brilliant songwriting there).

It doesn't stop me from looking out my window, my imagination taking me across the bleak, barren Winter landscapes on this silent night to homes of families, friends, and gatherings, through cities, suburbia, through country, through people being together and being happy, through children having the most precious memories of their lives created, and despite all that's wrong with the world, at least there is this one night that the Christian world shines with hope, peace, and love.