My husband doesn’t like holidays. Apparently, holidays are nothing but commercial inventions to sell us stuff we don’t need. He’s not quite Grinch since he doesn’t mind my delight with holidays, but he participates with great reluctance and furious criticism.

Yet holidays have been around longer than capitalist systems and unnecessary stuff. Thousands of years, to be more exact. So, what’s the point?

Have you noticed that the wisdom of eternity is often hidden in the minutia of life?! A curious thought popped into my head whilst … drinking a cup of mint tea.

You see, tea in itself is dead matter. It has been beheaded, deprived of sustenance, and left out to dry.

But just because something lacks life, doesn’t mean it’s dead.

Some hot water, and within minutes that same ‘dead’ tea gives you all the life it once had – the aroma, the flavor, and the essential oils still trapped in the crumbles that once were bright leaves.

The cup itself becomes full of promise!

Your hope is a lot like the tea leaves. At times, the experience of life beheads your hope, deprives it of sustenance, and crumbles the remnants into tiny pieces.

And yet it’s not dead.

When hope is submerged in something magical, like holidays, it becomes alive once again, reminding you of all the flavors of life; reminding you how essential it is to know that what is yet to come is full of promise.

Eva Fanari

That’s what holidays are – an ecosystem that brings hope back to life. That’s their purpose; that’s why we need them.

Happy holidays:)

Photo by Eva Fanari, Morning at Starbucks