Those who were raised in church have probably heard more than one sermon how that Christmas is a special day set aside to commemorate the birth of the Lord Jesus.
Although this a special day of remembrance, the spirit of the season should live in our hearts all year long. I’m not so sure the “spirit” of Christmas prevails throughout the year (in fact, I’m certain that it is gone for many before the clock strikes midnight to ring in the new year), but one thing is for sure — the commercialism of Christmas is evident all 365 and one-fourth days!
I fear this overemphasis has turned me into something of a Grinch! Even the great English author Charles Dickens wrote of ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, not everlasting ghosts for every day of the year! Dickens’ three familiar specters have been o’ershadowed by the Ghost of Yearlong, Commercialized Christmases that never end!
Not that many years ago, when I was a child, I used to watch television eagerly for the first Christmas commercial. Even then, I began to notice that they came earlier each year.
I no longer have to worry about this, greatly due to the Hallmark Channel. If I had time, I would love to count the number of days that Christmas is NOT mentioned in some form on at least one of their stations.
It seems that the revered Halloween (with its tons of candy for eager children and their dentists) cannot even compare with the commercialism of Christmas. I never see an endless, yearlong celebration of Halloween. And what about Thanksgiving, the day set aside to remember the times our founding fathers paused for a sacred time to thank the Almighty God for his establishment, protection and preservation of our great nation?
There are so many Christmas sales (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.) that shoppers barely have time to stuff a piece of processed turkey meat down their throats in between the battles for the bargains!
I doubt the preachers of my youth envisioned a time when there would be numerous shops and even hotels with year-round Christmas themes. In a time when artificial trees were a rarity, it was not safe to put up the Christmas tree too early, especially before electric lights replaced candles, as there was danger that the dried-out branches would catch fire.
When I was an older child and youth, I was in charge of deciding when our humble tree was to be put up. Originally, that day was exactly two weeks before actual Christmas Day. The tree was taken down and the shabby ornaments carefully preserved for the next two-week period of celebration.
Eventually, this time changed to the day after Thanksgiving, through the tree came down the day after Christmas. Eventually, the take-down date changed to New Years’ Day, more from the burden of the chore of removal and storage than from prolonging the joy of the season. I have not put up a “real” artificial Christmas tree since the year 2000, though I do have a ritual I follow that I will share with you next week. I have felt compelled for a few years to return to decorating a tree, though I have failed.
This year I am going to put up my first tree for the first time in two decades! I was reminiscing at lunch a few weeks ago about the “icicles” that decorated the trees of my childhood. I have not seen any of those for years. My good friend and colleague Susan Oaks surprised me a few days later with a few packages of these treats, and so many visions of childhood Christmas trees paraded through my mind.
So in commemoration of my Christmases past, I am going to put up a four-foot artificial tree, just as close to the one of my youth as possible. I am going to break into my library attic and resurrect the tattered antique ornaments of my childhood. It won’t be exactly the same, but maybe, just maybe, a little of the magic will return! Oh, wouldn’t that be blissful?
Another of the Christmas traditions I treasured in those days of black and white or small portable color sets, the days of two VHF channels (three if I counted PBS) and one UHF (some good Google materials, younger folks!), were the presentations of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. The sad, bittersweet story of what happened to the lovely characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is worth a Google search. Put in the search engine “Rankin Bass” and be prepared to take a pleasant Internet journey. Several years ago, when I was teaching at Luttrell, I bought those three movies in a set from an Avon representative. I have them in a hallowed place on my home library shelves. Though I haven’t watched them in years, I have no desire to part with them. They remain a link to a kinder, gentler past that I shall never more experience on this earth.
There is one Christmas tradition that I dearly treasure. Every Christmas Eve, always after dark, I watch the 1984 DVD version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” that stars George C. Scott.
I loved Dickens’ story before I ever saw it on the screen, and after I saw George C. Scott portray the miserly Scrooge, I have been spoiled for any other version. Since the days I used to show the movie every year to my elementary reading classes, I don’t watch the movie on any other day of the year — to do so would seem sacrilegious.
Perhaps it would be wise as I take my leave of you, Faithful Reader, to wish you a HappyHalloweenHappyThanksgivingMerryChristmasHappyNewYear, as individual holidays are unable to be separated these days. As the pastor of Loveland Baptist Church said last Sunday morning, “When is the appropriate time to put up a Christmas tree? Whenever you want to!”
A thought from my email world:
Something that a true Southern shopper would never say:
“I just couldn't find a thing at Walmart today!”