To all you loungers:
This Christmas Eve, I'm offering my sincere wishes to you, for peace and joy in your hearts.
I recognize that many of you may be grieving, may be lonely, and may be lacking any Christmas spirit.
I have a hard time at Christmas myself for various reasons, and you should know that you are not alone.
Please remember that if you are grieving loved ones who have passed, they would want you to show yourself some grace this holiday.
I've been through several stations in life. Some very very good, and some very very bad.
But I always try to remember and emphasize the gifts I have received, and I don't mean material items.
I have gratitude for many things, and many people.
This season, see nothing but the good things that have happened to you in your life. And if you are missing someone, pick out a few good memories of them, and focus on those memories only.
I'm just another person on the internet whose words might not mean too much, but I'm happy you're here.
Merry Christmas.
= new reply since forum marked as read
oops! replied to the wrong post but the sentiment still stands.
You’re one of my favorite posters here on DU.
Merry Christmas to you. 
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Your words are a gift, Thank you.
Same. Very much same.
But I have say, Christmas is for grumpy old nuns and the church lady. Give me Saturnalia!!! Weeee!!!!!!
I hope your Christmas is peaceful and pleasant. And Happy Holidays to all DUers, Loungers especially. 
Bah, humbug!
LuckyCharms had responded to an earlier post (by a day or two) that was full of grieve.
Lucky had reminded this poster to love themselves.
Love yourself. Above everything else. love yourself, recognize that you are here for a reason.
Recognize that you have touched more lives than you can realize.
Recognize that you have likely saved someone's life during your time here, and you will never even know about it. I can 100% guarantee you that something you did, sometime in your life, saved someone else's life. Something innocuous. Something that by design, you were meant not to know. But...you did it.
I'm not going to point this post out because it was self-deleted, although I want to take this opportunity for that poster to know that someone is always here to listen.
I believe it's imperative to recognize grief. We see this every year around this season.
Anyway, I was going to share one of the two of these tomorrow and I haven't decided which one just yet.
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A personal story from Niagara:
I don't talk about this because it ended up being a sad story later on. I was working at a public school and I was basically a cafeteria aide. I ended up moving to another school with more responsibilities not long after this happened. I would help the Kindergarteners and 1st graders open milk cartons, attempt to slice apples with a disposable plastic knife and just to be of assistance and make sure everyone was behaving themselves.
On December 14, 2014 I ended up performing the Heimlich maneuver on a sixth grader during my shift. This happened on a Friday. It wasn't yet Christmas so we had another week to go before the week off for Christmas.
I told my lead what happened and asked if someone could walk the sixth grader to the nurse to make sure that I didn't hurt her. I thought about this sixth grader all weekend and hoped to heck that I didn't hurt her during that maneuver.
The day or two before, I had actually stopped to read the Heimlich maneuver poster that was on the wall. I had never taken a CPR class and for whatever reason I was drawn to this poster even though I walked past it for days previously and countless times.
During the Covid pandemic, this sixth grader that I helped out, her father openly and publicly mocked mask wearing and mask wearers.
Her father ended up succumbing to Covid and died during the pandemic.
The reason why I'm sharing this, I did save someone's life way, way after a point in my life where I almost didn't save myself.
It's not easy for me to talk about. I wanted to share.
That sixth grader would be in her twenties now.
Because of you.
You don't have to wonder if you ever saved someone or not.
You saved two lives.
What higher calling is there, if not that?
Thanks for sharing.
My hubby can't seem to keep himself from playing some WOW. (Yep, I am a gaming widower... heh.)
But I sure hope you do have a good holiday season! You deserve it!
I wish you were my (real) neighbor
