I want to wish you a very Happy Holidays.

No matter how you may celebrate this time of year, and however different this year’s celebration may be from what you’re accustomed to, I truly hope you are still finding a way to celebrate. Maybe this will help a little.

It doesn’t matter whether you are particularly religious. There is still, I think, something inherently reverent and spiritual about this time of year. And by spiritual I don’t mean supernatural, I mean that winter has always uniquely called out something in the human spirit.

Most of the winter holidays have been handed down to us by cultures for whom surviving winter was a serious concern; and as such those holidays have always been connected to questions of how harshly the environment would treat us when the days grew dark. We’re in a tough season right now but that’s exactly what the holiday season has always been about—making it through the long winter. The winter holidays have always been about wrestling with life and death and meaning and putting food on the table, and all the unknowns to come.

Winter—for all its glistening beauty—is a cold and dark time. Put simply, winter challenges and threatens us. Perhaps in the 21st century it’s more accurate to say winter occasionally inconveniences us, but for our ancestors’ winter was a deadly serious business.

And winter doesn’t have to be worries about surviving ice and snow. Winter storms can also be things like the struggle to make rent, find work, fend off sickness, or wrestle with the grief of loss. Since the dawn of human history the winter holidays have always been meditations on whether we would have enough to get through the coldest darkest times.

And so here is what I love about the holidays … in response to a difficult season we chose to combat the darkest of days by adorning our homes with sparkling lights and tossing another log on the fire and bringing evergreen trees in from the cold and diving under a soft blanket and filling our bellies with warm food and warm drink and giving gifts to one another to bolster our hopes precisely at the time of year most likely to take something from us.

That’s what this time of year has always been all about. I can’t help but think that all those from whom we’ve inherited these traditions would shake their heads and laugh if they heard us say, “The holidays are ruined because we’re in such a dark, difficult time.” My friend, the holidays exist because of dark times. The holidays were born from dark times. You may think the reason for the season is a huge family gathering. You may think the reason for the season is a performance by a church choir hailing the birth of a king, or the miracle of the lamp stand not running out of oil. You may think the reason for the season is unfettered shopping at your favorite store or a special meal at your favorite restaurant. But let me tell you what the reason has always been for the season. It has always been about overcoming the coldest, darkest days in a worrisome fragile existence with light and warmth.

The reason for the season has always been about overcoming the darkness with the deepest magic humans can conjure — love, joy, peace, and hope.

And so, the holidays are not cancelled. Especially this year these are indeed holy days. Celebrate! Find a way. And when you’re done meet me back here again and together we will get back to work, building yourself a beautiful life.