How do you spend Christmas?

I know another Christmas post. Bored yet? It'll be over soon!

I was thinking today about a conversation I had years ago when I worked at a university that let us have a couple of days off around Christmas. The workers there and I were sitting at lunch talking about using our time off. Most of us were at least nominally Christian and were talking about presents and shopping and some were spending time with family. One woman was excited to see relatives she hadn't seen in awhile. Another was worried about the relatives that would be at her parent's house that year and the hassle of the holidays.

One of our collegues was Jewish and we knew that, so we just asked how she was spending her time off. She said quite simply, Well as you know, she was Jewish so she didn't celebrate Christmas so she and another Jewish woman thought they would go and visit kids in the oncology ward at the local children's hospital and see if they needed anything or just wanted to visit.

She wasn't trying to be ironic but I remember sitting there thinking what a perfect way to celebrate the spirit of the season and her phrasing was that "I'm Jewish, so I don't celebrate." I wonder what wonderful things would happen if we all decided to "not celebrate"?