Our street is a quiet oasis. It isn't a through street, although it leads to another, intersecting street. At the foot of our street and the foot of the other is a main thoroughfare and traffic is crowded and busy. In fact, it's a frenetic season altogether we're in. Panicked people are out in the shopping areas crowding stores, looking for parking spots, anxious to do their Christmas shopping.

Most main roads are now densely packed with vehicles driven by people determined to get their shopping done and not be left at the last possible moment in a true panic looking for last-minute bargains. It's beyond exhausting, I should imagine, and I sometimes wonder why people do this to themselves. The frantic commercialization of a beautiful holiday season overtakes peoples' common sense.

They have been manipulated and victimized by a strictly commercial culture that demands one show affection for others by pleasing them with gifts. This, at a time when the Christian world is wrapped in remembrance of times past and present, and rapt at the memory of a Jewish sage whose philosophical thoughts of universal acknowledgements of a need to consider ourselves responsible for each others' well-being through equality, compassion and care forms the foundation of their religious observances.

It is best to keep one's ventures out in traffic and into shopping areas to an absolute minimum if at all possible. Peace and quiet, serenity and introspection will not return until this season has passed and people return to their senses. Hopefully retaining some measure of the grace and kind feelings that flooded their minds as they attended services meant to evoke those emotions. At least we've been able, in the quiet of our home, to listen to the wonderful music of Handel's Messiah. We haven't yet heard much in the way of traditional popular Christmas music, though we do enjoy not that so much as music of the classical sacred tradition reserved for this season.

The sight of people's homes being decorated in bright shining colours as a declaration of their recognition of the very special nature of the Christmas season, evoking thoughts of their childhood, their family, their youthful experiences, and visually marking their faith in the goodness of humanity along with faith in a higher power to whom the faithful cleave and pledge themselves seems as good a way for neighbours to profess their appreciation for their community as any.

We could, however, do without all the advertising that tumbles through as additions to our mailbox and our newspaper delivery. There's still "Black Friday" advertising, and now there is the usual plethora of gift advertising, everything from electronics to toys to kitchenware to clothing, jewellery, sports equipment and beyond. In fact it's a magic time for children, and that's where the gift-giving should concentrate, not elsewhere -- and stop there as well.

Adults can enjoy the fanfare, the colour, the music, the bonhomie and glitter, and that should surely be enough on top of the family get-togethers and parties thrown by friends and workplaces. Instead of gift-giving why not make it a point to give deeply-felt donations exclusively to charities? Those in particular that help the indigent in any community put food on their tables, cloth their children, and gift children with toys they would no other way acquire, at this time of year.

Our own celebrations are daily affairs in appreciation for all that our lives have given us. Each time we take ourselves out to the natural world accompanied by our two little dogs it's with the sensation of just how fortunate we happen to be. To have met and recognized one another as children, to eventually spend our entire lives together, to be born in this country, to have been given life, employment and recreational opportunities of such great value. We cannot congratulate ourselves enough for our good fortune.

Our little dogs, Jackie and Jillie are in agreement. Not with our thankfulness that our children live their own lives of intelligent choices as accomplished individuals with values we recognize as those they have partially inherited from exposure at a young age to those of their parents. Not  that we are happy to have had the opportunity to raise such children, and be proud of their accomplishments. But that the opportunities and emotional bonds that we exposed our children to and shared with them, are now theirs too to enjoy in a fulfilling life.