The Christmas season is here…as if you didn’t know.

I went into a store looking for some dinner napkins a few days before Thanksgiving and the clerk told me,

“We already took down all the Thanksgiving things. It’s now all Christmas stuff.”

“But Thanksgiving isn’t here yet,” I puzzled.

She shrugged. What could she really do? She guided me over to the Christmas tableware.

“Maybe one of these could work?”

So together we found some white napkins with pine cones. As we were mulling them over, Mariah Carey started belting that forever played Christmas song over the loudspeakers. Or was it Kelly Clarkson? They sound alike to me - loud….mind-numbingly so. Always shouting about something or other at the top of their obviously huge lungs.

Why do things seem to get so much louder this time of year? What happened to silent night?

I left the store thankful to get into the soothing silence of my car. I took a few deep breaths and watched the steam start to form. The shift between the cold air outside and the warm air I was exhaling.

Cool air in.

Warm air out.

Cool air in.

Warm air out.

It’s important to reclaim a pocket of silence every now and then. In a way it’s an act of resistance to the bombardment of sensory stimuli all around us, particularly at the holidays.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as lighting a candle, holding a warm cup of coffee and savoring it slowly, opening one window, watching a snowbird, taking a slow shower or bath, writing a letter to someone you love, observing a few deep breaths, or simply reflecting on the miracle of new birth held in a simple manger of straw.

Wishing you a season of quiet daily miracles.

Even amidst landscapes of loudspeakers.

• Joan Budilovsky, PhD can be reached at editorial@kcchronicle.com or through her website, Yoyoga.com.