The difference ...

The decorations are already out.  People are either complaining or rejoicing.  The choice is always up to you how you choose to go into the season.  I move into October with a grateful heart as it is my wedding anniversary month and my lovey's birthday month.
I keep the holidays as low key as possible.  Hunter never, ever was a Halloween kid, Thanksgiving has its stresses and Christmas was the the max overload  of sensory issues.  As we have gotten older Tony and I have decided to have the holidays as more of a four of us family unit thing. The kids are happier and so are we.  We celebrate one another so much during our every day lives that the holidays almost seem unnecessary.  We try to teach the kids that all year we should be caring, loving, tolerant and compassionate.  While I appreciate what a lot of people and organizations do for people during the holiday season, I also feel like why not implement such practice during the WHOLE course of the year.  Tell people as often as you can how much you love them.  Tell your friends how much you appreciate their friendship in June as much as December. 
That's just my two cents folks.  I am done preach' now read/watch actor Michael Beach do his thing.


From the movie Ms. Scrooge.
Actor Michael Beach as Reverend Luke delivered this speech in front of his congregation. 
Best speech ever. 
To watch click the link below or you can just read.  

https://youtu.be/xDBgo7AIPQg

Skip to 5:14 

Christmas ... the holidays ... are supposed to be all about giving, right?  All about sharing and helping one another.  I mean we already hear so many stories about it.
Well, I have one more story to tell.  And it isn't one of these true to life stories.  This story ... this story is from the "other side".  Its about the difference between heaven and hell.

It seems there is these two fellas; one from heaven and one from ... well, ya know ... the other place.
They get together one day to compare notes about what its like in heaven and in hell.
The man from heaven asks what it's like down there ... what its REALLY like in hell.
"Whew" the man from hell responds "It's terrible!  We get really tired and hungry from feeding the furnaces all day ya know.  Then they sit us down at these huge banquet tables FILLED with food.  PILED high with delicious food.  All kids of wonderful food.  The devil comes out and says "All you can eat!  Help yourselves!  Have seconds ... thirds even!  There is just one rule.  You must be polite and you must use your fork.  NO grabbing food here in hell"  SO there we are all ready to dig in and eat some of that wonderful food.  And we reach down to pick up our forks.  And every one of those forks have a handle that is THREE feet long.  There is NO WAY in the world we can get that food in our mouths and that ol' devil stands there laughing and laughing over and over every single night and I tell you it is torture something AWFUL!"  
"Well" says the other man "we've got big banquet tables of food in heaven too. And our forks ... our forks they have the same handles no WAY we can feed ourselves either.  Exactly the same problem.  So we just sit down .... and feed each other"
THEY FEED EACH OTHER!
They feed each other ... now WHAT an idea!  What an amazing thing to do!  
MAKES ALL the difference between feast and famine ... between happiness and torture!

Now how come nobody in Hell thought of that?
Not. One. Soul.
Well no one down in Hell thought of that because that is not they way they THINK.
That's why they are DOWN there in the first place.
It would NEVER occur to them to do anything for any body else.
And THAT'S their curse.
And THAT is the real pain of living in Hell.

You see ... it is the curse they laid upon themselves when they walked the Earth.