For many people around the world, this will be their very last Christmas. Some know it, most don’t.
Is there really anything terribly wrong with making it a good one for them?
“They” might even be “You”.
Now why would that be wrong? Why not give and care all year? At our local store I give the manager 20$ bucks from time to time, She uses it if someone is buying a needful item and is short some money or for kids whose parents can’t afford that candy bar or treat. I prefer giving to my community in this way. It is also contagious when they find out about anonymous benefactors. I am no longer the only one doing this at that store. People come back and payback what they used often with a little more. You ought to try it.
That was more of a statement wasn’t it James?
And yes, it might even be me…be ourselves.
We must be kinder and more compassionate and loving and understanding toward ourselves.
How would you go about being the above to yourself, James? 
I gave you my heart but the very next day you gave it away, this year to save me from tears I’ll give it to someone special, special.
I like helping people but your OP James is a little light on content.
The problem concerning love and money is that even though love is more valuable than money, it isn’t so simple to put a number and thus a monetary note on love. That makes the amount given and taken obscure and even suspicious. Clarity of who is giving how much and to whom is what makes people capable of having friends and working together.
And even though genuine love expects no return, the continual giving and never receiving eventually stops the ability to give. Thus, due to that lack of clarity issue, more intelligence and actual understanding (not merely sympathy) is required among the populous. It is easier to stupefy a populous than to intellectually enhance it. And thus it is easier to use money in place of love by merely keeping people stupid.
An actual love economy would blow away any money economy over night and create far greater intelligence in the world. But only if it uses a clear and obvious exchange note that truly represents what and how much has been given or is needed. To deny the use of such is the enforcement to use money and its limits in place of love.
And thus a true Christmas is never really an “exchange of gifts”. It is a giving to another and a recognition of it… period. How much isn’t the issue. You have the other 364 days of the year to take and give in exchange of money.
That’s a bit more like it, I genuinely as an atheist admire the morality of Christianity, if only all Christians did. 
“Just because you go to church does not make you a Christian, any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”
Anon.
“You will know mine by their love.”
But will you know love when you see it?
Are you just saying we should be nice to people who might die in a year?
Because I dunno man that seems like it’d have be putting out a lot of effort for little return.
I think in general if you are nice to people you are more likely to get a return than if you are an asshole, even if it is not immediately apparent.
This morning, I (a man) was outside when a woman walked passed.
She said, “Good morning, I hope you have a nice day”.
I replied “Thank you.”
She answered back “I should be saying happy new year.”
I said, “It has definitely gone fast this year.”
And that was the extent of our conversation. I have no idea who this woman was but I believe we were being nice and expressed love (friendship) to each other.
C.S. Lewis wrote a good book which detailed the four loves… It was called “The Four Loves” 
Affection (Greek = Storge)
Friendship (Greek = Philia)
Eros (Greek = Eros)
Charity (Greek = Agape)
The problem humans face today is that we do not know what love is. We have become disconnected from a vast majority of our emotions and struggle to identify them … as we engage in a consumerist frenzy. The choice between an iPad and love seems obvious… Love is when someone gives us an iPad rather than the giving of a smile with a “I hope you have a nice day”. We have grown suspicious of the smile as we ponder what motivation lies beneath.
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s.
— Merchant of Venice,
I keep my enemies close, and with few exceptions, I let my friends stay strangers.
I like the idea, but I think we need specifics, but I don’t even know where you should begin. Perhaps, you can present some senarios of people giving love, then explain exactly how they gave the love, what was written on the exchange note and what type of love was given later on in exchange.
Yeah, that is definitely the challenge.
It seems to depend upon changing mindset from material items representing value to anentropics as value.
Material objects are far more obvious (ie. gold, car, or food), but obviously not quite right or complete.
Fixed Cross was promoting the idea of “Value-ontology” which is basically the right idea, but still lacking details, especially concerning anentropics.
Basically people have a serious need to be thinking more in terms of “what am I really getting out of this in the long run?” It’s that “in the long run” issue that keeps the impoverished where they are. Positive builds slowly and thus requires focus on the long run (which is why bankers prefer women and children in charge of the checkbooks).
Many people have taken on that challenge, but it has an intelligent adversary… with a LOT of money. When they make any progress at all, they are usually literally assassinated and the blame shifted to someone else. It isn’t merely an intellectual challenge, but a dangerous one. Where did all the good men go? - Murdered. There were too few of them.
But how do you teach a field mouse to stay away from that particular cheese when the farmer is paying the geneticist?
“… and let’s keep them that way.”
The USA government declared that the truly effective nootropics are for official use only, “keep the people more stupid that us.”
And who owns that government? - Those who have enough money to buy the entire nation (if they didn’t already own it).
Wouldn’t you have to have experienced it first, James?
Most people, but not literally all people.
Love is an intellectual concept, not merely a feeling.
The feeling is the sensed urge to do the concept.
I can and often do the concept with or without the feeling attached.
You only feel an urge when you are not already doing it.
In today’s anti-Christ environment, I doubt that many people feel it or understand it.
This is typical of the Christian mind set, how can you understand something like love if you are not Christian. Er I can’t even begin to fathom the profound depths of how wrong this is so I’ll use just one word. Bollocks. 
Its not the religion, its the religious.
Quite. Just accept as fact that if you are a Buddhist, Mormon or Jew or Taoist or an atheist you cannot know love. 
What do you mean by this - that most people would have had to experience love in order to see it?
I don’t think that Christ was speaking of an intellectual concept, James. He was speaking of agape, love in action.
And if someone has never had the experience of “real” love, of loving or of being loved, how could they possibly recognize or even accept it, for that matter?
To do the concept? 
i agree with you there - but “do the concept!!” - isn’t that a bit of a sterile expression, my friend? Or were you speaking of sex? Only kidding - unless you were.
“Feeling an urge” cannot be the only thing which causes us to love actively. Sometimes we feel that urge and it feels so good to us but then it passes. As human beings, I think we do need the emotional side of it, but without an active will to love, what is it?
Active awareness and understanding of another without the attached “gooey” feelings is a far better incentive and directive to love.
But James, there was 'real" love long before the birth of Christ.
There are wonderful loving christians around but you have to admit too that there ar some whose lifestyles and responses have biased others against christianity. Many humans are just not able to separate Christ/Christianity from human imperfections/foibles or maybe I’ve got it wrong here. Perhaps what’s to be remembered is that Christians are human - no copout meant here. Perhaps what’s also to be remembered is that we often take the beautiful and the good and misuse it. I suppose that’s just a part of our animal natures. If humans were perfect and holy unto themselves, what need would there have been for a supposed god to become one of us?
A much belated Merry Christmas - and a happy new year to you, James. 
This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."
C.S. Lewis
IMH/SO, you simply never learned the intellectual side of it.
IMH/SO, by understanding what it is before deciding whether they have ever seen it.
IMH/SO, If you see a need and give to that need, whether you felt any agape sensation or not, you have performed the act of love.
Do you have to fall in love with a homeless or desperate person in order to give anything to their favor?
Who said there wasn’t?
IMH/SO, Jesus stated that everyone already knows how to love (perhaps the only real error he made).