The holidays are a break from political squabbling

One of the beautiful things about election season being in the fall is then Thanksgiving season comes upon us. A time that we can rejoice, a time that we can be family, a time that we can put aside our differences and really enjoy each other, perhaps. One of the things I love about Washington, D.C. is that the fall falls. We have leaves of color. It is beautiful. We wrap up in our coats and scarves. And actually when you go into different restaurants or stores, we say hello to each other. And that’s very, very uncommon here in Washington. It’s one of the differences that I noticed immediately upon moving here to work ten years ago from Southern California where the weather is so consistent that we smile all the time when we go into stores. And so we’re able to cross political lines just by saying “Hello, isn’t it kind of nippy outside?” 

Another beautiful thing about this particular season is that then we roll into Advent, a time where we look at ourselves, a time when as a people, we say, “Wait a minute. What can I do to make the world better?”

I’m waiting and expecting our Savior.

We move then immediately into Christmas season. Those 12 days that we actually come together as a society to say our founders did have ideals rooted in eternal truths.

They had those eternal truths as their guidelines to say we need a limited role of government because we believe people can self-govern, that we need free and open markets because we believe people can be honest and exchange in a wholesome sense. We’re trying to get there. But at least the marketplace allows us to do that.

Going in with a smile, we may get the job and get the wage that we think we want or we believe we deserve without the hand of government. 

They also believed in the “E Pluribus Unum.” Oh, we had issues, we know it. Slavery was still there when we became a nation. But E Pluribus Unum, many become one. Anyone, by any background, any ethnicity could be in this country, work hard and actually realize a great dream and leave amazing things for their children.

And then we go into New Year’s after that Christmas season to say, let’s begin another year. Let’s go for this again. You know, it’s unfortunate that politics breaks it down because it is a struggle between worldviews. I mean, there are two worldviews vying, one for freedom, one for you don’t know how to live free, so we’re going to do it for you.

So it’s going to be an interesting January when people take up their power again and we start back to the fighting. But for now, it is Thanksgiving season moving into Advent season moving into Christmas season, moving into a new year that we can celebrate with each other, wrap ourselves in winter coats, enjoy the snow, whatever weather we want to live in, because some of us live in winters and some of us live in southern places that don’t get snow the way that they do here in Washington, D.C..

So I’m very excited about the opportunities in front of us. I’m very excited about Thanksgiving. I’m very excited about Advent. I’m very excited about Christmas. I’m very excited about 2023 as we open the door to another opportunity for us to try to figure out how to make a great society consistent with our founding principles of freedom and personal responsibility.