In search of The Moment

I am on my annual Scavenger Hunt, and it has one item on the list -- the Christmas Spirit.

Every year I am in search, actively and passively, of The Moment that I feel the spirit of the holiday. Perhaps I'm wrong to go looking for it, or even expect that it will come to me. But I do.

Often, when The Moment arrives it involves music.

Several years ago, it was during mass on Christmas Eve, while one of the carols was being sung. The woman behind me sang in beautiful harmony to the choir members on the risers at the front of the church. Last year it again involved hearing a rehearsal of Handel's "Messiah," but with my son in a church in London where he spent a semester.

I think of the spirit of Christmas and I think of the expectation and excitement of small children.

These days, however, the spiritual, magical part of Christmas is easily pushed aside by the commerce, chaos part of Christmas. The seasonal drumbeat of advertising and marketing seems to start earlier and earlier. The worse the country's economy, the earlier the drumbeat starts ... before Halloween this year. It's become like the presidential campaign: it starts too early, it lasts too long, it focuses too heavily on all the wrong things.

I made my obligatory trip to the mall, thinking I'd get in during the work week when no one else would be there. Silly me ... the place was packed with kids and parents trying to escape their homes that had no power or heat because of the severe ice storm that hit the area last week. I thought my head was going to explode. That certainly wasn't The Moment. It was more like The Wrong Moment.

I'm still on the hunt.

Have you had a Moment yet? Do you expect one, need one? Let me know by replying in the comments.