The True Meaning Of Christmas

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

I used to love Christmas when I was very young.  I don't know many young kids that don't including my own.  Then, once in my teens I began to hate Christmas.

I hated Christmas mostly because there was never anything to do on it. Before the internet there wasn't anything on television except Christmas programming and everything – including the bars – were closed.  And forget about getting much work done… No one is around. But, now that I have 2 kids and in Mexico Christmas is more of a party with family and friends than anything, I've come to again enjoy Christmas. It's always nice to have a moment to pause for reflection.

The little people who live in my house do believe in Santa, but I never told them about him.  They mostly pick up info on him from the media (television and movies). They get very excited about the prospect of Santa coming, and I think that's fine. Of course, I'd prefer to tell them that it is actually me buying all of the gifts and the reason I can buy them is because I work very hard, but that's for later. For now, some magical guy (sort of like the government) just gives them stuff once a year cause he's been spying on them and they've been good. In the end, I suppose, it's a great opportunity to begin teaching them about government surveillance.

This year I took it a bit further, though. When both the munchkins wrote down a list of things they wanted from Santa I was quite surprised!  My daughter wrote an epic list, "Laptop, ipad, dresses, earrings, necklaces…"  It went on and on!  I laughed when I saw it and told her that the list was way, way too long and she had to just choose one or two items.

"Why?" she asked, looking up with her curious big round eyes like any 7 year old.

"Well, Santa can't just give you everything you want!  Where do you think he gets all the money for all this?" I asked, trying to get her brain gears moving.  And they did start to grind!  She sat silent for nearly a minute thinking about it and then amended her list down to two items.

The list was now reasonable for "Santa" and she then asked me, "What are you going to get me?"

I laughed and said, "Santa was having a bit of financial difficulty, and I was backing him this year."

She seemed to understand and I was quite happy that I had implanted in her the idea that everything you want in life has to be worked for… it doesn't just come for free… like many Obamites think… to them Obama is like Santa Claus.  Where does he get the money to pay for all the Obama phones and welfare checks?  His stash!

I try to never directly tell my children my thoughts on how the world works directly but I do like to plant ideas that make them think about things that usually result in them seeing the world similarly!

Like, when my son was telling me all about his experience playing Minecraft recently.  He told me of all the stuff he had built through his hard work and how frustrating it was that some beings called "endemans" would come by sometimes and steal some of his stuff.

"Sounds like government!" I said, off-the-cuff.

"Ya," he said, thinking about it, "like government!"

Getting back to Christmas, my friend Amanda Billyrock recently posted to her Facebook page the following:

Trying to weigh in my mind whether or not I'm glad that my parents lied to me as a child about Christmas.

Because it used to be so magical! The snowflakes and the reindeer and Santa Claus. The elves and the presents and the cookies. The gingerbread houses and the Christmas movies and the songs. Sneaking out of my bed at night to go sit in front of the decorated tree and gaze at the twinkling lights in silence.

Every year since I deduced that Santa wasn't real (maybe around 8 years old?), Christmas has been less and less enjoyable to me. Now, at 27, I hardly celebrate at all and I am actually kind of annoyed with the whole thing.

Where did I go wrong? Or do many others feel the same way and I'm not cynical after all?

I sympathize with her, and felt very much like she did when I was younger. But, as I've grown older, I've learned to cherish the moments I get to spend with my new family. As for the lies we were told, our parents were doing what they believed to be best for us.

As for the "magic," that lies within us. And it could lie within us 365 days of the year, not just on Christmas.

Sure, Christmas is not the word of God nor Jesus. But, does that mean we shouldn't take time out of our hectic lives for ourselves and our family? As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14-15, “So my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true.”

So, I will decide for myself. 

We all must, after all, decide for ourselves, what the true meaning of Christmas (and everything else in the world) is, even if it is terribly mis-guided and vapid:

Ultimately, however, we all learn the truth, I think:

Happy Holidays to all Dollar Vigilantes!

Hopefully you had a great Christmas, and none of you were thrown in a cage, a senseless victim of holiday checkpoints and increased squad patrols. 

Thank you so much for your support, and we look forward to a prosperous New Year.  I will be in New York bringing in 2014 with Russia Today and many liberty-minded individuals.

As I have stated before and will write more on shortly I think 2014 is going to be one hell of a year… both positively and negatively.  On the positive side, the cause of freedom appears to be rising tremendously… scaring the heck out of both of the anachronistic left-right parties in the US… and the best part is they have no idea how to stop it!

And, on the negative, we are going to see more financial system collapse coming.  Of course, if you stick with us here at TDV you should be able to ride it out in relative comfort.  And, just a reminder if you still have significant assets in the US (or Canada) you should be rushing to internationalize them in a sound structure that can be passed on to generations to come, should you so choose… not to mention receiving incredible tax advantages just by doing so.  To find out more on doing that and joining us in Panama in early February, click here.

Anarcho-Capitalist.  Libertarian.  Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks.  Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast.  Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the world’s freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business.

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