Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Winter Solstice, or any other Holiday greeting that you like to say. The reason for the season is for all of us and not just one religion or group. I think that is the beauty of the season, which has been celebrated long before the establishment of the Christian religion. This has always been a season of renewal, where the sun starts a new cycle. Every day will get a little bit longer until the Summer Solstice. It has been this way since the beginning, and it is great that so many religions and groups have come to embrace this time of year as magical. Every religion and group likes to believe they are the reason for the season, but to be truthful, it has always been the Sun and its cycle that has driven the reason for the season. We have just taken advantage of it from our own religion and beliefs. As a child, I always thought it was the time of year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but as I have grown older, I have come to realize it is much bigger than that one birth or just one religion.

One thing that has always stood out during this time of year is the giving and receiving. As a child, I can remember waiting on the steps for my parents to get up so we could go into the living room and see all of the presents under the tree. As I got older, I still enjoyed receiving and giving gifts, but I began to understand the importance of the emotional part of giving that really made the season great. It would be nice if we could, every December, wrap our hopes in ribbon and pretend the world is a little kinder than it was the month before. No more bombing of boats. No more threats of war. No more throwing people into cages. This year, the nation doesn’t need another scented candle or novelty mug. It needs something stronger. It needs something that lasts longer than the pretty lights and the tinsel. It needs the gift of honesty.

What a stocking stuffer, “Truth in Public Life” would be. A simple enforceable duty for anyone wielding public power to be truthful. It really would be a holiday miracle. Every time we have a President gives a speech or posts something on social media, we need to have fact-checkers to tell us if he is being honest with us. Wouldn’t be great if we didn’t need to fact-check our President or our Representatives to know whether they are being honest or not. Children learn to tell the truth not only when it matters, but especially when it matters. We are teaching our children to always tell the truth before they can even spell Christmas. Truth, believe it or not, is what I consider a multilane highway. You have to tell the truth. You have to believe what you are hearing and seeing is the truth. You must also care about the truth. We have hundreds of victims of sexual assault and rape, but we have a Department of Justice that is hiding the truth by protecting the criminals and denying justice to the victims. They are supposed to release all the information from the investigation, but instead released hundreds of blacked-out pages. That is not being honest. One of the saddest things to me is the fact that we have a whole lot of people, both in government and the general public, who just don’t care what the truth is and whether the victims get justice.

Another Stocking Stuffer we need for the season is a Rule of Law Snow Globe. Shake, and instead of snow or glitter, we get something that the Republicans would consider radical, like: “The law applies to everyone”, “No special exemptions”, “No selective enforcement”, “No naughty list that only includes the powerless”, and “Just equal justice”. These were, in a sense, the vision that the Founding Fathers envisioned would happen when they wrote the Constitution, but we have come a long way from their original vision. Right now, it seems that people with money, people like Donald Trump, abuse the system. Our Constitution was not written so that the President would be above the law and hide behind a political party and the Supreme Court. It would be great if we had a Supreme Court that ensured the Rule of Law Snow Globe reflected reality.

How about if we started out Advent with a “Transparency Advent Calendar”?  Every day when you opened the door on the calendar, it would be something that we already had. Open the door, and you would see “Agency performance metrics”. Open the next door, and we would see “Lobbying disclosures”. Every day, we would see something different, like “Inspector General reports” or “Real-time legislative updates.” I know that many would prefer chocolate from each door, but I would think that if we had real transparency, that would cure many of the ills of the nation.

One thing that we really need is a “Lights On” Government Tree instead of the standard Christmas Tree. The tree would light every branch of the Government. There would be no dark corners. There would be no hidden ornaments. There would be just a clear view of how power is used and by whom. Right now, too many issues are kept in the dark, out of view from the voting public. I saw an interview with Trump where he didn’t even know a guy that he had pardoned. You solve that by turning on the lights. We would then get a clear view of how power is used and by whom.

How about a new Christmas Tradition, a National Tradition of Truth-Telling? Holidays are rituals that shape memories. Imagine a new tradition: A yearly, nonpartisan “State of the Facts” report that lays out the country's real conditions, economic, environmental, and civic, without spin. It could be a gift of Clarity for a nation that can’t hear anything because of all the noise. To too many, the truth and themselves are just plain strangers.

What great gifts. Honesty is the one thing that Democracy cannot function without, and that is why ours is failing. Truth is the only thing that is strong enough to hold a divided country together. We are so divided because of all the lies we hear and read every day. The rule of law is the closest thing we have to a national North Star. Unlike most gifts, these will not wear out. These gifts will only grow stronger with age and when more people share them.