Family Christmas

Dear children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, yours consorts, all beloved and admired, who are the comfort and joy of this old couple, me and my beloved Nancy.

We Brazilians live for many millennia, perhaps eight or more, in a world of tradition, culture and ethics which we call Jewish-Christian civilization, whose greatest celebration is the birth of a man who introduced love as the ultimate instrument of harmony and peace for all. humanity: love your neighbor as yourself.. And this is what we celebrate today.

So, dear ones, let's talk about harmony, peace, tolerance and respect. The other day, my dear granddaughter Jaqueline posted a text that puts us facing the dilemma of being right or being happy. This is an important reflection and leads us to think about the concept of happiness itself.

After all, what is happiness? I believe we can define it this way: Happiness is the state of mind in which our inner world is in harmony with the universe, which gives us sufficient and necessary pleasure.

That is, happiness is within us. We just don't find it while we struggle with our own feelings or the outside world. When this futile struggle ceases our soul may be filled with happiness. Is it worth winning the battles of interests, concepts, opinions? I adopted a phrase from Bertrand Russell for my life: "I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong”.

I defend ideas that seem right to me, or less wrong, when there are no other options, but only to the extent that they do not offend harmony, tolerance, and respect for the opponent. There is a time when we must choose between being right or preserving our happiness. After all, what is life but nutrition, protection, reproduction and the pursuit of happiness?

Now I want to talk a little about love. Although I loved and fell in love with Nancy, from the first moment I saw her, I didn't know exactly what love was until I realized the greatness of my wife's love for me. It was at that moment that I abandoned myself, gave myself totally to her love and loved her, and I love her forever.

So, my beloved, let us celebrate the joy of being together, of hugging and kissing, of loving, the joy of love.

But this party of ours today has an early yearning. Nancy and I, her eighty-six years old and me eighty-eight, are already past the average life expectancy of our contemporaries. So, this is a day of celebration because we are still alive and at the same time afraid that we will no longer be here next Christmas. But rest assured, we love life so much that we hold so tightly that we do not intend to move away from this world for at least another two decades.

I propose, therefore, a toast to the fact that we are still here, that we intend to be here for a long time, a toast to life. To love. Let's toast. Merry Christmas!