With Thanksgiving over, my mind immediately turns toward Christmas and all its delights. Today, my husband and I will be putting up the decorations and break out the first of the holiday music. (I somehow still manage to love him even after he declared his hatred for the Carpenter Christmas album.) Every year, I plan out my Yuletide baking marathon of cookies passed down to me by parents, grandparents, and an uncle, and I eagerly await those nights when I sit with a mug of spiced hot chocolate in front of the lit tree.

While I believe the holidays can bring out the best in people, they certainly have their dark side, and the season's rampant consumerism is one of their ugliest expressions.How many of us rush around trying to buy something in order to fulfill our obligations to others? Some people I know don't actually care what they get for a friend, co-worker or family member; as long as there's something wrapped up in reindeer paper, they feel like they've lived up to others' expectations.

The so-called "need" for more stuff reached an absurd and tragic low one year ago today. Thirty-four year-old Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death by a crowd surging into a Wal-mart in New York. The hundreds of shoppers became enraged when a store employee said that the store would open earlier than its already-early time of 5 a.m. and then told the crowd he was joking. They pushed forward in anger, literally tearing the doors off their hinges and knocked Damour to the ground, eventually killing him. First responders had difficulty even reaching the victim because of the number of people now pouring into the large retailer.

And what did they get from that slightly earlier opening time? More tubes of toothpaste for stockings? Perhaps a Polaroid camera on sale? Untold heaps of plastic crap made in China where factories are literally turning rivers black as soy sauce to meet the demands of Westerners' slavish devotion to conspicuous consumption?

Many yogic texts talk about the trends of grasping and aversion, which keep us bound to cycles of suffering, and the holidays create textbook examples of how all this works.

For example: I really want that amazing new phone I saw at Best Buy. I must have it for my spouse!!! Charge it up, sales clerk. (Shortly followed by) Oh, I shouldn't spent that money on that, especially when my rent is so high. I'm never going shopping again. I'll cut up all my credit cards right now. Despair! Infamy! Shame!

Both ends of the spectrum lead to imbalance, and part of the goal of yoga is to be alike when experiencing the pairs of opposites in our lives. When it's hot or cold, can we maintain a sense of equilibrium? When we're experiencing delight or despair, can we view these as transitory states not based in the transcendent reality of this divine manifestation? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna often tells Arjuna that people should work towards  being completely nonattached to the self-perceived worth of or emotional attachment to objects and situations.

Could there be a greater time of year to practice than right now? When our entire culture is burning the candle at both ends - financially, emotionally, socially - consider cultivating an attitude of equanimity and non-attachment to the entire melee. I think we, as Westerners, get freaked out about non-attachment, because it suggests non-involvement, but from my limited understanding, that isn't really the case. Again, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to act fully and completely, but with complete non-attachment to the fruits of your actions. He doesn't say, "Lie down in the road and wait for death to take you." He asks us to put our hearts and souls into the great works of love without thinking that we're going to get a karmic kick-back for it.

When you slave over that homemade gift and someone seems underwhelmed, it's easy to get disheartened, angry, or offended. (I know this one, for sure.) Instead, try making those homemade soaps with no hope that someone's going to like them or use them. Package them beautifully. Write personal notes. Put an intention into the soap as you're stirring it. Give it your all. And then let it go.

In one of her many books, American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron speaks of living without hope. At first, this went against every seeming impulse that had been ingrained in my life. How dreadful! That's so depressing! If we give up hope, what do we have left?

The present moment.

Without always hoping for something different at some future time (which, honestly, might not ever come for us), we can return to the here and now. The beauty of winter clouds scudding across the sky. The sound of a fountain. A full and resplendent breath. 

Dare yourself this holiday season to take your practice off the mat and into White Flint mall. Consider walking through all the shops and just experience the present moment. There will be no buying this day. No trying anything on. Just a stroll through stores, touching things, looking at them, observing what longings or thoughts of gifts arise, or even feelings of inadequacy about not being able to buy something expensive for so-and-so. Enter the now. Breathe. Feel. Search for yoga. 

The Tantric yogis believed that in a mad, mad, mad world, the old spiritual rituals no longer worked and we need to embrace the insanity of this world as the path itself. That includes holiday traffic. That includes family gatherings full of old frustrations and wounds. And that certainly includes a trip to Wal-mart.