It's Christmas and I'm feeling festive, so I don't really care whether someone wishes me "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukah" or even "Peace". In fact, I've been mystified by the fuss over holiday greetings as we Coloradans have swamped stores buying gifts and promising ourselves to be less crazy next year. Putting the "Christ" back in Christmas, after all, is an intensely personal choice and has little to do with packed malls or holiday cocktail parties.

When I was growing up, Christmas vacation hadn't been changed to Winter Break. Our tiny rural school performed a Christmas play every year, attended by the entire community. But, surely some people felt left out because they practiced another faith-or no faith. And, since this time of year is a holiday season for most of us, I'd prefer to focus on what we share rather than whether we like the way a store employee greets us or how a school district labels this particular vacation.

During my childhood, Christmas was a huge family festival. We lived on a cattle ranch with lots of room for energetic activity, so my entire extended family descended on our house for two weeks. We three kids moved out of our bedrooms so our aunts and uncles could have them and shared the basement and porches with our many cousins.

My memories are of a swarm of us plopped in the back of a couple of pick-ups, heading out to cut down the perfect pine tree to haul home and decorate. My mother and aunts spent days filling our house with pine branches and treasured ornaments, before heading to the kitchen to prepare Christmas dinner for 40 or more people, including family, friends, and ranch employees.

My cousins and I thought we were remarkably clever as we sneaked chocolate from the kitchen cupboard in the early morning hours and slipped off to practice our minimal driving skills on the tractor, certain no adult ever noticed. But, we also expected ourselves to look out for one another, help with the rather substantial job of providing numerous relatives three meals a day, and lead the annual trash cleanup along the county road.

Ranch work, which never stops, certainly didn't take a break for Christmas. In fact, part of our fun was riding horseback to gather cattle and brand the calves. Everyone participated in whatever work had to be done, a routine occurrence for my parents, but a dude ranch opportunity for my aunts, uncles and cousins.

So, for me, Christmas has always been more about family than religious belief, more about doing things with and for one another than worrying about whether the holiday is being celebrated according to what I think is appropriate. And that is what I value most about this particular holiday. It is a season that encourages us to reconnect with those we care most about, an opportunity to share our good fortune with others, a time to celebrate according to our own traditions without judging the value of someone else's way of celebrating.

My extended family is more scattered now that my generation of cousins has become the parents' generation. My children and nieces and nephews are the current band of cousins who have become close friends because of the holiday traditions our families have shared. I hope they continue to use this time of year to celebrate together, and to give their children, in turn, the fun of a big family gathering. I hope, as well, that they always see this season as an opportunity to pass on their family values to yet another generation.

For all of us in Colorado and across America on this Christmas day and this holiday season, my hope is that each of us can celebrate as we wish, according to our religious, family, and personal traditions. I hope that we will honor and respect the ways in which others celebrate as well, which, after all, is very American. To each of you, I wish a holiday full of meaning, family, and joy.