By Gilbert B. Elwyn

I’ll state the obvious: it is December…the month when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus and when merchants celebrate their biggest month, if they’re fortunate. December is a month that, for many of us, is filled with stress, obligations, and bills. It is also the twelfth month of the year, the month when, during the exhausted haze of the Twelve Days of Christmas, sometimes we contemplate our lives and make plans and resolutions for the New Year.

New Year’s resolutions tend to be “me” oriented: I’m going to lose 10 pounds, I’m going to read one book per week, and I’m going to… Seldom though, do we connect December 25th and January 1st together, unless it’s a Christmas card greeting: “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”
I submit to you that a Christmas gift obtainable to us all can also serve as a worthwhile New Year resolution. Be forewarned though; it might be difficult to keep. If Christians celebrate Christmas as Christ’s birthday and, according to Jesus, remember that “love is the greatest commandment,” then I suggest
that in 2008 we try truly loving one another.
This type of love is not the touchy-feely, “God loves you and we do, too,” love of the televangelists. It is not the shake-hands-and-smile fellowship love of Sunday mornings. It is not even the “I donated money to (fill in the blank)” type of warm feeling that we sometimes get and which turns out to be, after all, a love of self.
I am suggesting a down-to-earth, 24/7, treating people the way you would wish to be treated love. Can you imagine what wonders might be wrought if we let this one precept – “Is this the way I’d like to be treated” – govern our actions in business…with family…with friends and acquaintances…yes, even in sporting events and while on the road.
No, we are not pie-in-the-sky optimists. It takes but a brief look around to realize how few people, including (alas!) ourselves, follow this commandment, but wouldn’t this January be a wonderful month to give it a try? Maybe it would indeed be a “Happy New Year!”

This is the debut of a monthly opinion column. I will do my best to keep these columns thought-provoking, but essentially non-controversial. The opinions expressed in these “wig bubbles,” as Lord Buckley might have called them, are not necessarily those of the management, advertisers, crontributors; nor sometimes are they those of the author after he’s thought things over a bit.