As I constantly read and see people walking around with their negative perceptions about Christmas, I wonder if they even know what Christmas is really all about. So let me set the record straight, Christmas is the holiday in which the birth of Jesus is celebrated. Now that we all understand that, I can move on to something else the Christmas season is about, which is being thankful and giving thanks.

Motivational speaker Alan Zimmerman was on ABC News a few weeks ago and was asked how you could be thankful when there are so many problems in the world today. Zimmerman said “problems are merely a distraction, but an attitude of gratitude is always possible … if a person has the right focus, discipline and behavior.” He went on to say that the most grateful people are the happiest and the least grateful people are the most stressed, and I could not agree more. Everybody in the world has problems and we all have to deal with them, but it is when we realize we have things to be thankful for we can start being happy.

Christmas is a season of giving and remembering the birth of Jesus. If we want to blame someone for making Christmas a secular shopping frenzy, look no further than Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt ,who wanted to move the holiday of Thanksgiving to make the Christmas shopping season longer. At the time, this may have been a good idea because of the collapsing economy during the Great Depression, but now some people are confused about what Christmas is really about.

We constantly hear in the media how horrible America is, but what people need to realize is America is not really all that bad. We do have a lot to be thankful for. There are so many people who are so unhappy with their own lives that they take it out on everyone else during the Christmas season. If they just took one second to reflect on the big picture, they may realize that their life is not all that bad, and Christmas is a little more than just shopping and Christmas country (which by the way is great music).

No, not everyone has a perfect life; yours probably isn’t and mine is not either. However, when I sit down and think about everything I have, I become humbled because of how great our lives are in America today. Compared to other countries, we really have something to be grateful for. We have so many opportunities that so many people will never have, so many freedoms, so give much to gain and so much to give.

I hope that this Christmas holiday people will show more thanks for everything they have and everything they do not have, because nobody needs everything. May we all be thankful for the things that are meaningful to us and with kind hearts show thanks to others, because after all, that’s what Jesus would do.