Don’t Let ‘The Grinch’ Steal Your Christmas

By  Colleen O’Connor

Remember the timeless holiday poem by Dr. Suess., aka, Theodore Geisel.

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

Familiar?  As in current political events?  Global mayhem and sadness?

So, here is an idea.  Forget the political world news for the next few weeks.  Nothing will happen until it happens.  Meanwhile, let the joy of the season begin.

Become a child again… just this Christmas.  Remember the wonders.  The excitement.  The joy in just being and imaging.  And revel in the beauty.  Let your heart grow in size.

A few examples.  First Art.

This fabulous piece of news needs no imaging.  An Italian banker returned a Botticelli masterpiece of the Madonna and Child that he hid in his basement for decades.

Just look at it.  Beauty.  And imagine how stunning the restored painting will look next Christmas.  And how it will move our tiny heats to grow in size.

Another example of wonder.  Marine biology.

Headline: “Shocking study discovers bottlenose dolphins possess electric sixth sense.”

NUREMBERG, Germany — Scientists at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany have discovered a previously unknown sensory ability in bottlenose dolphins: electroreception. The truly shocking finding bridges the gap between dolphins and other known electroreceptive animals and adds a new understanding of how these charismatic creatures interact with their underwater world. [See photo above]

Or this: Extinct creatures found!

A blind mole thought since 1936 to be extinct was recently rediscovered in South African sand dunes using eDNA — a technique that collects skin cells living creatures shed “while they are busy with their lives,” the expedition’s leader said.

Or an entire continent rediscovered.

An ancient missing continent was finally rediscovered 155 million years after it vanished.

• A chunk of land that broke off from Australia 155 million years ago seemed to have vanished.
• Seven years of research helped scientists trace the landmass back to Southeast Asia.
• It could help explain an invisible barrier across Indonesia that animals don’t seem to cross.

How about Space and the discovery of a “Ghostly Cosmic Hand.”

“Of course, the structure isn’t actually a hand, but it represents something just as otherworldly: the magnetic field lines of a dead star, 16,000 light-years away from Earth. Around 1,500 years ago, a giant star ran out of fuel and collapsed in on itself, crushing all of its protons and electrons together to form a super-dense neutron star.”

Astronomers Spot the Oldest Black Hole Ever Seen, Shedding Light on the Early Universe

Dating to just 470 million years after the Big Bang, the ancient cosmic structure could help researchers understand how the first black holes formed

Using two space telescopes, scientists have spotted the oldest black hole ever detected, dating to just 470 million years after the Big Bang. The cosmic structure is so old that if the 13.8-billion-year history of the universe were squeezed into one calendar year, it would date to just the second week of January.

Beyond its mind-boggling age, this black hole is also huge—somewhere between 10 million and 100 million times more massive than our solar system’s sun.

Add more art, music, trees, oceans, archaeology, children,  family and to your Christmas and feel your heart grow.

It even happened with the Grinch.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”