Dear Friend of the American Freedom Alliance,

We wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a joyous holiday season!

Last year at this time we were "locked down," "prevented" from seeing friends and family and isolated to an appalling degree. But it's my recollection that we looked forward to the new year, this one, with optimism that things would, naturally, improve. We expected that restrictions would weaken, that movement would be less constrained, that the virus, whatever was left, would have run its course and that the fear would have abated.

Surely, we thought, it would all be different by Christmas 2021.

I don't know about you, but it seems that the grip driven by the fear and false narrative has only gotten stronger, even as it's more non-sensical and more counter to science and to reality.

We are "permitted" to see one another (oh how gracious) but families are tearing themselves apart because of fears and "certainties" about the virus and vaccines; the divisions among us are ever greater, as a result of the brilliant propagandizing. We each have our stories... and so much is supremely ugly.

And the restrictions on our movement, at least in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, are terrifying and profoundly sad.

But at the same time, more people are realizing the extent of the deception, and the fact of the matter is, the virus itself is abating. And despite the media, this is a great, great thing.

All this is by way of saying: it's up to US to decide how to live our lives, and despite the president's words about a winter of death, WE can choose to LIVE, to cast off the narrative of fear while we turn back to how we HAD been nearly 2 years ago and reset our own defaults: Showing our beautiful and smiling faces, presuming that we're healthy until proven sick, engaging in civic life without restriction, hugging, laughing, singing, sharing meals and lives with those whom we care about.

It's Christmastime, a time of celebration and birth, a time for rejoicing, and I hope each and every one of you is able to feel and share in some of that joy.

With so much appreciation for each of you,

Most sincerely,