It was the BB gun that really sent me over the moon that year. A few years after that, it was the cd player. Then came the iPod, the next iPod, and finally the smaller iPod.

I think Christmas is shrinking.

It also seems to be hungrier. Everything we ask for brings us access. Kindles suck down verbiage at light speed. Cell phones suck minutes and money. Laptops prefer tweets, status updates, and emails.

Toys used to be things that needed to be manipulated, worked on, or were instrumental in developing a skill or ability. Basketballs. Toy kitchens. Train sets. Blank notepads and pens, if you can believe it. These things came into our lives and forced us back out in the thick of things to succeed or fail. Christmas was a kick-start.

I’ve railed on this blog before about the perils of modernity, but I think I was twarking up the wrong twee. What’s troubling me more than ever is the lack of action that comes inherent with the things we crave.

I love the show Intervention on A&E. It never fails to be completely honest, and I find real connection with some of the people on those shows, not only the family members of the ones who are sick, but many times with the sick themselves. More often than not it seems that all of them fall prey to periods of protracted nothingness, brought on either by chemicals ingested externally or unattended internally.

It’s that nothingness that threatens us.

Christmas needs an intervention. Not holistically, for how would that even work? No, it’s a more intimate fix that’s needed. It has to start with me. I have to want not to deteriorate. I have to want to grip life by the jingle bells. I don’t know how much we can do about the way things are going in general, but we can certainly keep our soul’s fires burning in of ourselves.

This year, focus less on finding presents and more on being present. Let’s see if we can’t fatten Christmas up a little. She’s lookin’ a little thin.