It’s the most wonderful time of the year … or is it? I think Easter is better — maybe it’s because I happen to like spring better than winter.

Holiday carols and Christmas hymns are fun to hear and sing this time of year. We’ve been hearing them all of our lives, and they’ve become so familiar to us and ingrained into our culture that we don’t often stop to think about what we’re singing along to or why.

Yes, Christmas is a “wonderful time of the year,” but why is the “most wonderful time” in December?

Is Christmas the only time of the year we’re supposed to be of good cheer?

“The Christmas Song” (“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”) sparks nostalgia about warm fuzzy feelings of being together and anticipating Santa’s arrival. But what about those who don’t have anybody to roast chestnuts with over an open fire? What about those who are separated from their loved ones or have lost them?

I have spent too much of my life being self-absorbed and expecting others to make Christmas special for me and have begun thinking about ways in which I can help those who are down and out this year rather than obsessing about the “perfect” Christmas gift, crowded malls and rigging up the lights.

It’s a privilege to experience the wonder and magic of Christmas through the eyes of a child, and watch children “with their eyes all aglow,” but sometimes we adults get so caught up in the nostalgia and fantasy that we lose sight of the real meaning of Christmas, or worse, fail to educate children about it.

Dropping coins in the Salvation Army bucket is a noble thing, and kudos to those who donate toys, money or food to charities during the holidays.

But what about the rest of the year? Do we care or think about the same needy and poor people in March or July?

Why is Christmas the only time of the year when most of us think about giving?

It’s partly due to our culture. Do we give simply because that’s what we’re supposed to do during the holidays, or do we give because we simply have more than we need and truly want to make a difference in the lives of those who don’t have as much?

One of my favorite “holiday carols” is Band-Aid’s “Feed the World,” produced in 1985.

The most prominent rock and pop musicians at the time gathered to create a song whose proceeds would go entirely to help ease the hunger crisis in Africa.

Corny Hallmark presentations, elaborate tree-lighting ceremonies, Santa Claus appearances and jam-packed mall parking lots won’t get me excited about Christmas this year.

Happy holiday music, plastic Santa Clauses, reindeer and snowman lawn ornaments, holiday savings promotions and Christmas carolers aren’t doing it, either.

The commercialism, the frenzy, the chaos and agonizing over what to get the one relative who has everything turns me off.

I wonder how people living here who don’t observe Christmas feel about all the commotion. It’s a little hard to ignore, given that it’s so deeply ingrained in our culture.

The irony is that we’ve alienated some people when the entire point of “Christmas spirit” is to reach out in generosity to your neighbor.

“The 12 Pains of Christmas,” a parody of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” does a beautiful job of poking fun at the commercialism we have allowed to contaminate Christmas. It’s become a season of “rigging up the lights, stale TV specials, no parking spaces, facing the in-laws, going Christmas caroling and five months of bills.”

I will not give in to enticing holiday offers from the retail industry this year.

I will not give in to secular commercialism this year.

I will not shove a 20-item alphabetized and typed Christmas list in my family’s face this year — they have already given me far more from the heart than I could ever repay. They have already done a wonderful job of keeping the focus of Christmas where it should be.

We should be focusing on the birth of the Christ child, not Santa Claus. The shepherds in the fields, watching over their flocks, not the reindeer with the red nose. Counting all of our blessings, not the number of presents under the tree.

This is my “Grown-up Christmas List” this year — “that no more lives will be torn apart, that wars would never start, that time would heal all hearts.”