“Christmas is the time of year when you feel for other people. The only time when you have that feeling in your heart that you don’t have the rest of the year. Feelings of love and affection, I guess.”

This was told me one afternoon last week by a man from Newton, aged 73, who did not share his name. He was one of a dozen or so people I approached last week as they shopped at the Arsenal Mall in Watertown.

Peg McKeigue of Cambridge, who expresses enthusiasm for this column, calls this season “a very happy time for everybody.” It means “the coming of our Lord and salvation.” “I don’t usually come into this mall,” she explains, “but I’m looking for strawberries. One of my grandchildren wants them.”

Eva of Watertown told me that she is Jewish. The age she likes to use is “39” but she acknowledged being a lot older than that. She takes an expansive view of Christmas: “It’s a joyous holiday for everybody,” she says. “We get into the swing of things, we’re very flexible.” Though she does not have a tree, she does give presents as she also did at Hanukkah.

A husband and wife from Newton happened by. Ruby has special reason for celebrating: she was born on Christmas Day. She celebrates by making twelve kinds of cookies for her children and five grandchildren. They came the day before to trim the tree and have dinner. Her husband Wilford also associates the day with family and loves to entertain family members.

George, a 63-year-old resident of Cambridge, originally came from Syria. Though enthusiastic about the day, he feels that Christmas has become “so commercialized, the commercial part is overtaking the spiritual part.” Perhaps it has been that way in the United States for a long time, he observes, but back home where he came from, he would receive a new suit and a new pair of shoes and pocket money but there would be no wide- spread exchange of gifts.

When asked about the Syrian/Israeli negotiations, he welcomes them and says that “peace all over” is important to him.  

Virginia Viall, 83 of Newton, worked with her husband in the ministry for 58 years till his recent death. Despite this blow, her spirit remains strong along with her resolve to continue her husband’s work. “I’m carrying on, doing the things I always did for him. I love doing it, I love serving the Lord,” she tells me.

Another gentleman, Jim from Chelsea, who is approaching his 84th birthday, says of Christmas, “You’ve got to enjoy it because it’s what we’re brought up with. You’ve got to believe in something; if not, we’d be running around amok.”

Seventy-seven year old Martin Grealish lives in Brighton, having emigrated from Galway, Ireland when he was still a young man. For him Christmas means peace and happiness. “It’s a peaceful time for me,” he says while taking a break on a mall bench.

A 75-year-old woman from Belmont quickly answered my question about meaning in a single word “prayer.” As explanation, she added: “because that’s the story of Christmas.” She also confessed to being helped by prayer to recover from illness.

Another woman answered: “Just about everything – family, religion.”

Florence Cleary said, “We really and truly should try to be kinder to one another, and I don’t think we are.” She grew up in Cambridge but now lives in Watertown.

Kathryn Ferguson, a middle-aged woman from  Waltham, says “it means the birth of Jesus and celebration with family and children.” Asked about Christmas being a tough time for some, she takes inspiration from a television evangelist who advises seeing the Christmas tree as the wood of the cross as well as a sign of happy times. “And we have little children,” she adds buoyantly.

Encounters with these shoppers left me with several strong impressions. First, how polite people were. Almost uniformly, they stopped to talk with this stranger holding a tape recorder in his hand. Only a few people among them indicated they did not wish to be interviewed.

Their enthusiasm for this holyday/holiday season  also impressed me – for them, Christmas has retained its allure despite the pessimism so often hears about it. Two or three mentioned difficult aspects of this holiday time but these comments were usually set in a positive framework. One man, for instance, said  wistfully: “When you reach our age, you lose people.”

The elders I talked with also seemed to put gift-giving in perspective. Their immediate response usually focused on their religious faith and their love of family. Holiday hoopla did not seem to count for much among them. Though spiritual values are always hard to talk about, these people indicated that they care deeply about such things.

I came away from these encounters feeling more upbeat about the Christmas events and looking forward to holidays with renewed enthusiasm.

Richard Griffin