While the media trumpets the most heavily promoted holiday, more than a few people will silently wish for it to be over.

Statistics bear out that from November to the first week in January is the most stressful time of the year. The confluence of the holidays, the encroaching darkness, obligatory travel, the reminder of loved ones lost and things that are no longer--houses, jobs, friendships--the disparity between the haves and the have nots, conspire to produce a sadness and anxiety, a nostalgia and longing that cannot be assuaged by gifts or colorful lights or any festive trapping.

I don't begrudge anyone their sleigh bells or gingerbread. I like the holdovers from paganism. They're the rituals, the communal glue that give our existence meaning and value. But the holidays have been commodified to the point that the average person will likely go into debt in order to make a decent Christmas. Many feel shame that they don't have money for gifts, or resentment because they feel obligated to buy gifts for political reasons. Others feel lonely and left out. Some will feel hurt when they spend care and more money than they can afford selecting gifts for those who don't appreciate them. So much unfulfilled expectation. But look at how we're set up by advertising: Norman Rockwell-esque illustrations of dogs sleeping before cozy hearths, corruscating Christmas trees, mountains of perfectly wrapped gifts, lavish dining tables where guests gather to feast on a home-cooked gourmet meal. Meanwhile, I remember the legless vet in a wheelchair parked near the subway stairs on 7th Avenue in New York, holding a cardboard sign with hands red from the cold. I think about the people like him who will go without, not only on Christmas, but every day.

At holiday's end some will breathe a sigh of relief. Some will regret having to leave families they see only occasionally. Others will feel bummed out, having to return to jobs they do only for a paycheck. Life goes on, and the detritus of Christmas past will be hauled off by sanitation trucks, never to be thought of again.

Christmas is just another Monday. You can make of it whatever you choose. Nothing is the end of the world, except the end of the world which isn't here yet. Be thoughtful. Be generous. Be kind to everyone around you regardless of whether they return the favor. Your conduct and mine is not reliant on anyone else. And I guarantee that if you make someone's day, especially a stranger's, especially during the holiday season, that's a kindness they won't forget. That gift is priceless.