"Every year, weeks before Christmas arid Hanukkah, I say to people, 'Decide right now: Are you going to give this season to God, or are you going to give this season to the ego?' These holidays are about the birth of God and the arrival of miracles. They are about personal transformation and the emergence of a new self. They are not about whose relatives we're going to be with, who we have to buy gifts for, and whether or not we have the money to pay for all of them. Such material considerations rob our energy and eat away at our soul. Yet such anxiety -ridden dynamics will prevail if we surrender to the endless nagging of our ego mind."
-- Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace