The holidays are here at last.

While some live their lives according to the shopping calendar (9 shopping days left before Christmas!), my life has been ruled by the academic calendar for as long as I can remember. Just a few minutes ago 60 students in my organic chemistry class were sitting in a room down the hall from me, hunched over their final exams, sweating bullets and scribbling formulas, hoping to make a lighthearted getaway from campus.

The holidays are finally here.

Holidays promise and holidays beckon, but what if they fail to deliver? Will your plane be late? Did you ask for concert tickets only to get placed in the upper deck behind the band? Will Uncle Rick and Aunt Alice, having sandwiched themselves on both sides of you at the Christmas dinner table, never tire of telling you about the week you spent at their house when you were three years old? Must you bite your tongue until it bleeds when Cousin Roger starts his annual post-dinner tirade about the Direction this Country is Headed In?

Zen practitioner and sometime Santa’s helper, Shozan Jack Haubner (a pen name), knows all about holiday angst. As he puts it (video link), the universe is not what any of us would have designed, and yet it is the universe we live in. Perhaps his ideas on opening yourself to the inevitability of giving and receiving will help steer you towards a family reunion that is happier and less anxious.

Wishing everyone the experience of peace, love, and kindness, this holiday season. -Alan