The Holidays, like much of 2020, seem dismal, disruptive, and even frightening to many Americans. That comes as no surprise.

On the one hand, you have many people who are determined to have family and friends and a traditional Christmas and New Years. No doubt, this includes many who voted for Trump and are concerned that (bad though it is) this holiday period may be the last for them in anything close to “normal times.” Some wonder if there even will be a Christmas celebration next year, except in hidden places and in fear of disruption and vicious attacks by those who hate it.

On the other hand, we find many people who are too afraid of COVID-19 and of terror to be rained down on them by the rapidly-fading Trump regime to enjoy the Holidays. Many of those, of course, didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving – having little to be thankful for except that they hadn’t died already from Wuhan Virus. And obeying Dr. Faucet and “the science” in hopes that the angel of death would pass over them. They will “celebrate” Christmas wondering why the delivery service isn’t operating, whether they have enough booze to deaden their senses, and praying for Biden and Harris to end this nightmare.

Of course, my family and I don’t fit into either of those groups. Like many libertarians, but unlike them, as well.

We don’t “believe in Christmas,” and we don’t believe in human-created miracles, either. So we tick off both groups. But then we tick off many libertarians, too: we believe in God. And that He is in charge. And that we have hope in Him. Freedom and hope.

While I do not believe that the Messiah came to this earth on Christmas Day (whether it is December 25th or January 2nd), I know at least some of the many of the millions who DO honor Christmas in a religious way. And I know some of the many who do so in their childhood, even though they reject it – and God Himself – now.

So let me address both of these groups, which are in the two I started with.

Merry Christmas! And a happy New Year. A new year filled with liberty and peace and prosperity! Christmas, whether legitimate or not, legal or not, represents hope and good news. It can be an antidote for fear – fear of others, fear of disease, fear of the future. It reminds people that there is more than an impersonal, uncaring universe. That there is more than just oppression and short, brutal lives.

Fear and a lack of hope are dangerous – even killers. The idea that God sent Himself to earth to live as a pitiful, weak human is something that should overcome fear and depression. So, you ask, why is the holiday season the worse when it comes to suicides and domestic abuse? And even drunkenness and drug abuse?

Because too many people do not believe. Not just in God, not just in liberty, but in themselves. Or in the existence of decency or kindness. And sometimes it is easy to see why. The world, especially this year, is a lousy one. The Fifty States are a mess; in less than a year, it seems we have passed the peak of everything: economy, freedom, health, and more. The States are drowning in pessimism, fear that what has happened so far is just a prelude to the worse problems ahead. And the powers-that-be, regardless of what initial they have behind their names, encourage and promote that attitude. Because it gives them more power.

The solution is not easy: but it rests in the hands and minds and hearts of each of us – the choices we make on how we react to news – bad and good. Not just the choices we make, but the actions we take to implement those choices: to fight back against the fear, the hopelessness, and those who push it and benefit from it. We CAN defeat the evils that now stalk these States and the world and have made such a mess. We can refuse to obey, refuse to bow down, refuse to become our enemies. But, as I said, it is not easy.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of rejoicing and attention to spiritual matters, but it has become commercial and an opportunity for excess of every sort. People who don’t have faith in God, themselves, family, or others drown their lives in partying and everything we associate with that.

We can do better than that. You can, and I can. We can be free, even in a world, a union, filled with tyranny. God is with us, and not a nasty old man up in the sky who is the model of tyrants everywhere. Not the god that too many priests and preachers and reverends and gurus preach. Or the god that government types always seem to claim to follow. But a God that gave us life, gave us liberty, and gave us the brains and bodies and knowledge and hope.

Leviticus 25:10 reads, “… proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,…” (King James version).

Let us do that this Christmas; refuse to live in fear and choose to live in liberty!