Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas?

[This is another of my stories  that first appeared in my book, Once for a Shining Hour,  available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.com.]

This is a story in four scenes, showing how a secular Christmas song, with a pessimistic outlook, morphed into a positive affirmation of faith in Jesus Christ.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has three distinctly different versions as well as one which has only minor changes from the most famous version.  
  Scene One: Hugh Martin, with impressive credentials as a writer of musicals for Broadway and for Hollywood, wrote the original version of this song and other music for the 1944 movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. ¹
Scene Two: Judy Garland was supposed to sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in the film.  However, when she saw the words, she asked the composer to make some changes.  After some hesitation, Mr. Martin gave in.
Scene Three: Some years later, when Frank Sinatra was planning to record the song, he asked for more  changes.  These involved a small number of words, but these were significant for the content. 
Scene Four: Martin made the final major change many years later at his own initiative.  This rewrite  dramatically altered the theme of the song. This rewrite also reflected a major change in Martin’s outlook on life.
In the movie, as Christmas approaches, a family is upset when the authoritarian father springs the news that they are moving from St. Louis to New York City.  With little regard for their feelings, he assures his wife and children that they will like their new home and have lots more money.  But the move will mean breaking up friendships and courtships.  One of the older sisters is hoping to get engaged almost any minute, so she doesn’t know how that romance will be affected.
Against this background, Judy Garland sings the Christmas song to her on-screen younger sister, child star Margaret O’Brien, in the attempt to cheer her up about the impending move.
Trying to capture this dismal mood, Martin wrote some very dismal words in the original version.  For example, they are urged to have “a merry little Christmas” because “it may be your last.” When they go to New York, they all may be “living in the past.”   Their faithful  friends will be near to them “no more” instead of “once more,” as it is sung in a later version.
The song offers the bottom line: The family will be together “if  the Lord allows.”  Meantime, they will “have to muddle through somehow” and try to have “a merry little Christmas now.”
No wonder Judy Garland didn’t want to sing these thoroughly pessimistic lyrics in a wartime movie which was calculated to bring cheer to the country.  Despite Garland’s star power, Martin at first balked at her request.  He said it took a while to get over his hurt pride at being edited  ---  a sentiment any writer can identify with.
Then, after nursing his bruised ego for a while, Hugh Martin obliged the film’s name star and came up with the well-known words which are preserved on film and were the standard version of the song as recorded by many well-known artists.
There’s still a melancholy undercurrent in this version, acknowledging that Christmas this year isn’t going to be what the family had hoped for.  But a chin-up hope or wish is expressed twice:  that “next year,” with light hearts and gaiety, troubles will be “far away” or “out of sight.”
In this revised version, dependence on God is replaced with leaving the outcome to fate:  “If the Lord allows” is changed to “if the fates allow.”  But the bottom line, in both the original and in the version that made it to the screen, is that “we’ll have to muddle through somehow” in the effort to have that “merry little Christmas.”
Sinatra recorded the movie version of the song in 1947 after it had found its way into popular usage.  Then, a decade later, he wanted to include the song in an album called A Jolly Christmas, but he didn’t think the lyrics were “jolly” enough.  So he prevailed upon Martin to do some more editing and “jolly it up” for him.  The main change this time was to remove the line about having to “muddle through somehow” and replace it with the hanging of a star on “the highest bough” in order to have a “merry little Christmas.”  Also, the “Sinatra” version did away with the need to wait till “next year” when troubles would all be gone.  Instead of “next year,” the rewrite declares, “From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.”  These “jollier” words are more commonly used these days, but the fates rather than the Lord are still the determining factor in achieving the desired goal.
Though Martin had attained fame and wealth through his music, he was not content within himself as he moved in entertainment circles.  He said this environment was "wonderful in a way but very temporal, very superficial .  .  .  a very self-centered existence." ²
This inability to reconcile himself to the kind of life he was living brought him to what he calls “a full-blown nervous breakdown” in 1960.  With a feeling of utter helplessness in his own strength, he began praying to God for help. In working through this experience, he emerged with faith in Christ.  A few years later, Martin became closely identified with the Seventh Day Adventists.
With this reorientation of his life, Martin later wrote an entirely different version of his old song.  In 2001, at the age of 86, using the same familiar tune, he wrote “Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas,” with a forthright Christian message: ³

Have yourself a blessed little Christmas,
Christ the King is born;
Let your voices ring upon this happy morn.

This unapologetic Christian approach to Christmas refers to “hymns and hallelujahs” and “carols soaring up into the sky.”
Now, instead of having a merry little Christmas “if the fates allow,” the new song calls us to 

Make the music mighty as the heavens allow
And have yourself a blessed little Christmas .  .  . now.

Each of these four versions of this song reflects an attitude some people have as they attempt “a merry little Christmas.”
Original version---With life heavily bearing down, we may not be able to cope with Christmas.  We associate the holiday with good cheer and light heartedness.  When that balance is upset, the season may be too much to contend with, and this version reflects that discouragement.   It may prove especially difficult to face the first Christmas after the death of someone dear.  If a loved one died in the holiday season, every Christmas may be painful for family gatherings during holidays.  Muddling may be the best we can do.  
Movie version---Sometimes life seems to get put on hold, with loss of a job, an extended hospitalization, or a family member away in military service.  In these situations, celebration of Christmas may be delayed until the absent loved one is able to be with the family or circle of special friends.   For some, Christmas is specifically identified with a family gathering and exchange of presents.  So they may say, “We had our Christmas a week early before Ralph had to go back to Afghanistan” or “We waited about Christmas till Shirley got out of the hospital.”  The family in the movie feels life being reduced to a freeze frame.  A lot of muddling.
Sinatra’s Version---The theme in this version seems to be, “Life is what you make it, so we’re gonna hang that star on the highest bough, come what may.” There’s no indication that this is the star of Bethlehem which guided the Wise Men.  It may simply be the star on which we wish for a better day. This is akin to a later Christmas song from Broadway’s Mame:  “We need a little Christmas,” so we “haul out the holly” and “slice up the fruitcake” in the attempt to find merriment when there’s little justification for merriment.  “We’re going to have ‘a merry little Christmas’ if it kills us.”
Blessed Christmas Version---Here, the focus is on the real “original” version of Christmas.  With so many superficial approaches to the season, the birth of Jesus can easily get buried.   Hugh Martin’s decision to use the familiar tune, with its secular connotations, as the basis for a positive Christian song is a dramatic testimony to the change in his life.    
The lyrics of “Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas” point to Jesus as “Son of God/ And a friend to all,” the heart of the Christmas message.  There’s no more hoping to get through the season “if the fates allow,” no more muddling through somehow in order to “have yourself a merry little Christmas.”
Family gatherings with feasts and presents under the tree can be wonderful experiences in and of themselves, filled with rich fellowship and deep emotion.  Infused with the awe and wonder of the Son of God coming into the world as a friend to all, those events can be more wonderful, enabling us to have truly “a blessed little Christmas.”
Although there are no passages specifically indicated as songs in the Christmas stories in the Bible, many passages have been set to music.  We imagine the angels sang “Glory to God in the Highest” when they brought “good news of great joy” which would be “for all people.”
Also Mary’s lengthy words of praise in Luke 1:46-55 are widely believed to be a song.  It is traditionally known as “The Magnificat,” based on the opening words, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”  Magnificat is the Latin word for magnify or make great.
Here are the opening verses:
"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (vv. 46-49).
After the initial shock of learning of her impending motherhood, Mary’s song indicates she will “have herself a blessed little Christmas.”

¹ Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) - Trivia - IMDb  www.imdb.com/title/tt0037059/trivia

^{2 http://news.adventist.org/2005/12/culture-have-yourself-a-blesse-little-christmas-composer-hugh-marti-a-siger-el-elker-recollect.html}

³ http://www.answers.com/topic/have-yourself-a-merry-little-christmas#ixzz1Dkn0xhuh

Thoughts on "O Holy Night"

[This is another of my stories  that first appeared in my book, Once for a Shining Hour,  available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.com.]

The first time I can remember singing “O Holy Night” was on a cold -- if not holy -- night.
I was 16  with a group of other young people from our church  in our little West Texas county seat town of Sweetwater.  We were walking from house to house, singing carols to our homebound members.
I have come to love “O Holy Night,” but it is not an easy song to sing, especially by untrained, unaccompanied voices in the cold night air.  Some of the younger voices in our little caroling group  also were changing and subject to cracking on higher notes -- notes, by the way, which are equally as high as the high notes in the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The ringleader of our choristers -- short, stocky, 14-year-old Bobby Reed -- was undaunted.  Bobby always preferred to try something and fail, rather than not to try at all.  So what if the notes went higher than any of the more familiar carols?  We were braving the December chill to bring a little joy to some old folks at Christmas, not to give a perfect concert.
Bobby had learned to read music.  He played the steel guitar and sang tenor in a voice which he managed to keep under control at his stage of early adolescence.  He was also the leader of a pack of boys his age and younger in the church and in our neighborhood; some of them were with us that night.  So he was game for singing anything on a winter’s night, including “O Holy Night.”   If voices cracked and teeth chattered, so be it (By the way, the song is difficult for most folks, including adults, not just for teenagers out in the cold night air).
Although the song was new to some of our group that night in 1950, it had been around for more than a hundred years before we tried to sing it.  The tune was written in France in 1847 for a new poem written by a friend of the composer.  Then, the music and French lyrics crossed the Atlantic, where an American, John Dwight, wrote the English words in 1855.  There were also anonymous adaptations of the American lyrics. ¹
The song was in The Broadman Hymnal, widely used in Baptist churches across the South from the time it was published in 1940. ²  The songbooks were in the pew racks in most of the small rural churches we attended as Daddy moved from farm job to farm job before we moved to town.  But the song wasn’t up toward the front of the hymnal with “Silent Night” and “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”  So maybe small churches with no professional musicians didn’t try to sing it because it was “out of sight, out of mind.”
There probably were several reasons for putting “O Holy Night” toward the back of the book.  In the first place, it was longer and took up two pages.  Also, it was placed with other longer songs which might take a little extra effort to sing, used more often by the choir than by the congregation.  Then, too, its stanzas are about twice as long as in carols we sing more readily.  The Broadman was published in an effort to meet the needs of churches of all sizes.  The songs in the back section even included Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah.  Most people in the pew, regardless of the size of the congregation, wouldn’t attempt to sing that one. 
The English words are not an exact translation from Frenchman Placide Cappeau’s “Cantique de Noel”  (which means simply “Christmas Song”), but they are faithful to the thought of the original.
The tune and the words provide a majestic portrayal of the birth of Christ:  “O holy night,/ the stars are brightly shining,/it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!”  His coming brings “a thrill of hope,” and weary souls rejoice as they anticipate “a new and glorious morn.”  The French words point to midnight, “the solemn hour/When God as man descended among us.”
The second stanza in both languages focuses on the Wise Men or Magi.   In English, they are “Led by the light of faith serenely beaming.”  And the song admonishes these men, whom tradition calls kings, “Behold your King; before Him lowly bend!”  The French points to “ancient times” when “a brilliant star/Conducted the Magi there from the orient.”
The third stanza in both languages stresses freedom Christ brings, specifically in ending slavery.  The French version says, “The Redeemer has broken all shackles” because “He sees a brother where there was once but a slave.”  The English says, “Truly He taught us to love one another/His law is love and His Gospel is peace.  Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother/And in His Name all oppression shall cease.”
Among the revisions to John Dwight’s first American rendition, the work of an anonymous editor has come to my attention.  There were only incidental changes in the first stanza.   The second stanza replaced references to the Wise Men with mention of the shepherds.  But the third stanza is changed dramatically.  We could even say drastically.  References to breaking the chains and the slave being our brother were deleted by that anonymous editor.  The following words are substituted: “Long live His truth, and may it last forever/For in His name all discordant noise shall cease.”
Growing up in the rural Southwest in the era of racial segregation, I was not aware “O Holy Night” even had a third stanza.  That stanza was not in our Broadman Hymnal, published by the Southern Baptist Convention.  Many publications from various denominations in the South in those years were silent regarding segregation and the history of slavery.
I was an adult before I heard the third stanza.  I remember being excited and pleased to hear these words.  I wondered whether they might have been added during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s in this country.  But I learned that American lyricist Dwight’s version of the song included this third stanza, written in 1855, leading up to the Civil War, which began in 1861.  This third stanza reflects Dwight’s aspiration as an advocate of the abolition of slavery.
Equal standing for all people is implicit in the biblical Christmas stories as the newborn Babe is visited first by grubby shepherds who come to the stable and then by men of wealth from another country who follow the star in their search for the newborn King of the Jews.  
We see this inclusiveness borne out as Jesus grows up and launches His ministry.  Although His ministry is largely among His fellow Jews, He crosses many man-made barriers: loving and healing physical untouchables such as lepers, social untouchables such as turncoat tax collectors, and racial and religious untouchables such as the Samaritan woman at the well and the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was ill.  
After Jesus ascends to heaven, Simon Peter, the often impetuous spokesman for the apostles, learns of God’s acceptance of all people. When he preaches to non-Jews in the household of the Roman centurion Cornelius, he sees them receive the blessing of God’s Holy Spirit.  This leads Peter to declare that God is no respecter of persons:
And Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him (Acts 10:34-35).
The theme of breadth of outreach continues with Paul, who had been a persecutor of the church.  Later, he becomes a special apostle to non-Jews, who were excluded in the early spread of the Gospel.  In his letter to the Galatians, he declares, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
All this was foreshadowed on that Holy Night of the birth of the One who would draw all people to Himself through His death.  In his third stanza of “O Holy Night,”  Dwight makes this message explicit.   This inclusive message was one our group of teenagers had not heard and probably could not have grasped fully if we had heard it on that cold -- if not holy -- night in Sweetwater.

¹ The history of French and English lyrics was found in “O Holy Night,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Holy_Night.

² “O Holy Night,” The Broadman Hymnal.  Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1940.

A New Look at the Little Drummer Boy

[This is another of my stories  that first appeared in my book, Once for a Shining Hour,  available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.com.]

The story of the birth of Jesus is so full of wonder.  It stirs the imagination.  At times, that imagination runs wild, as the following examples show:
• As a babe in the cradle, Jesus spoke words understandable to the adults around Him. He defended Mary, who bore Him as a virgin mother, against those who accused her of unchastity.
• Animals speak with human voices each year at midnight on Christmas Eve, acknowledging the newborn Son of God.
• A crippled lad named Amahl joins the Kings on their pilgrimage when he is healed by faith after hearing their story of the Child they seek.  His story is told in Gian Carlo Minotti’s  one-act opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors.
Another child who shows up at the stable, through the power of our imagination, is a little boy who brings his drum and wants to play for Baby Jesus.      
This lad is the central figure in the song, “The Little Drummer Boy.” Several different people have been credited as writers of the lyrics and music: Katherine K. Davis, Harry Simone, Jack Halloran, and Henry Onorati.  It is said to have been written in its present form in 1941.  However, it was not recorded and released to the public until 1958.^*  In the half-century or so since it was recorded, the song has found its niche among Christmas songs with enduring popularity.
Told in first person by the drummer, each line of the story is enveloped in verbal representations of drumbeats: the highly repetitious “rum-a-pum-pum.”
In the first stanza, the boy is invited to join others who are bringing their finest gifts as they go to see the Newborn King.  They plan to lay their gifts at His feet as their means of honoring Him.
Self-conscious about having nothing tangible to offer the mother on behalf of her Son, the boy, in the second stanza, asks whether he might play his drum.
The third and final stanza tells the responses from Mary and the Baby as the lad plays his drum:
Mary nods approval.  As he plays, the ox and lamb wag their tails, keeping time to the rhythm.  The boy plays his drum, offering the Newborn King his best licks.  As the sound of the drum reaches the Baby’s ears, He seems to look toward the sound and smile at the boy and his drum.
There is a profound thought here which should not be drowned out by the rum-a-pum-pums.
Let us use our imagination: 
The drummer is at the manger, almost hidden from view by the regal Kings from the East.   He is self-conscious as they place their gold, frankincense, and myrrh on the ground before the Baby.
His drum is strapped around his neck, always ready to play. But he has absolutely nothing to place alongside the costly gifts from the Kings, nothing he can offer the little Baby King.  
As the boy thinks it over, he is relieved that he has nothing.  Anything he has ever owned in
his whole life would look shoddy by comparison.  He wonders what led him here in the first place.  Just then, the woman looks his way.  He doesn’t know her thoughts amid the strange and wonderful happenings tonight.  As the boy looks around, he feels he is no more out of place than those ragged, dirty, smelly shepherds who have gathered around, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as they look at the Baby and His parents.  It’s the Kings who make the drummer uneasy.  And the Baby they call King.
Earlier, he heard the shepherds talking among themselves -- about angels and bright lights on the hillside beyond the little town of Bethlehem, how the angels told them to come to town and hunt this Baby whose coming is good news to everyone, for shepherds and, perhaps, he thought, even for a boy with a drum.
With all the to-do of the Kings, dressed in their elaborate robes as they bring expensive presents, the lad isn’t sure what he should do or could do.  Maybe he ought to slip away quietly and play his drum to himself as he heads for home.
He loves to play his drum, and he’s been told, lots of times, he’s good with it.  Oh, sometimes his mother gets on him for playing so loudly while she’s cooking and doing housework. When that happens, he drifts out along the dirt road of the village, playing his drum as he goes.  That’s when he gets lots of compliments.  An old man down the street has helped him learn different rhythms.  A couple of times, the old man even let him keep time on his drum when some other men were playing their lyres and pipes.  That helped him gain confidence.
At the manger, as he’s wondering whether he should leave, a thought flashes through his mind: He does have one thing he could offer the Little King.  He could play his drum.  But then, he thinks; the woman and man might frown and tell him to stop the noise and get out of their way, just like his mother when she wants some peace and quiet.  Well, should he offer to play, or not?
Yes.  
No.  
Yes. 
No.  
Yes!
The man and woman look up at the shepherds and the Kings and then right at him.
Now’s his chance.  So he asks, hurriedly: “Shall-I-play-for-you-and-your-little-boy?  On-my-drum-I-mean.”
The man smiles.  The woman nods her head, as if to say, “Go ahead.”
So he starts playing, playing with all his might.  One or two of the shepherds join him, slapping their knees and bellies as he does some special licks he learned from the old man down the street.  He plays and plays, giving it his very best.  Everybody in the stable seems to be in rhythm.  A passerby stops to look in, then starts snapping his fingers, trying to keep up with the drummer.  Feet are tapping.  Even one of the Kings is patting his hands together.
For moments, the boy forgets where he is as he pours himself into his rhythms.  Then he happens to glance down at the Baby.  “He’s looking at me!  He’s looking at me!” the boy thinks. “Can you believe it? He’s smiling!  The Little King is smiling.  He’s smiling at me! He likes my drum!”
Then he stops playing.  Everyone is silent.  Nobody moves or says anything for several seconds.
Then he hears applause.  People gather around him, patting him on the back.  
“Great rhythm.”  
“Good show.” 
“How long you been playin’?” one of the shepherds asks.
The drummer is speechless.  He feels almost outside himself as he continues looking at the Little King and His parents.  As the others drift into the night, the Drummer still stands, still looking in awe at the family in the stable.
Finally, he puts his sticks into his belt and turns to go.  But then, he feels a firm hand on his shoulder.  He looks up into the kind, steady eyes of the man.  “Thank you, young man.  Thank you very much.”  
“Oh, no,” the boy says.  “Thank you, sir.  Thank you for letting me play for your little boy.”
As the woman begins wrapping the Baby more securely in the wide bands of cloth, she, too, thanks the drummer. “That was so special.  Thank you for coming to see us tonight.  When he’s old enough to understand, we will tell our son what you did.”
“I wish I had something I could leave with you.”
“Oh, you do.  You do. You’ve given something special.  You gave us a memory we will long cherish.  The sound of your rhythms will linger in our minds longer than you imagine.  You gave him a truly unique gift, something only you could give.”
Those words ring in the drummer’s ears as he starts for home.  
His fingers tap rhythms almost silently on the drumhead as he walks briskly through the chill night air.  He smiles to himself as he says over and over, “The Little Baby King smiled at me.  He smiled at me.  He smiled at me and my drum.”

Can we let our imaginations run wild as we think what we can offer that would bring a smile from the Newborn King?
Whether we have the wealth of the Three Kings, the simple possessions of the shepherds,  or nothing but the inner resources of the Little Drummer Boy, if we offer our best, we will see the smile of the King.
St. Paul described the spirit of early Christians in Macedonia.  As he urged churches to make an offering to some people in need, he had thought the Macedonians were too poor to contribute to this cause.  But they surprised him:
For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints -- and this, not as we expected, but first they gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God (2 Corinthians 8:3-5). 
The Macedonians gave as they did because first they gave themselves to the Lord. This is what the drummer did as he played for the Newborn King.
At Christmas and all through the year, if we give unselfishly of our talents, our time, our love, we will hear Jesus say what He said as an adult to people who gave freely of whatever they had in order to meet human need:
Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21).

^*Espie Estrella, “Little Drummer Boy, History of Christmas Carols.”  About.com. Music Education.

http://musiced.about.com/od/christmasnewyeararticles/qt/drummerboy.htm

He sees you when you're sleeping

[This is another of several stories I intend to post from now through Christmas or perhaps New Year's.  This one first appeared in my Once for a Shining Hour,  available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.com.]

A little preschool girl was in the bank as her mother waited in line for a teller.  It wouldn’t be correct to say the child was in the line with her mother.  Rather, she roamed among the bank staff desks  arranged around the lobby.

In an effort to keep her daughter in line, the mother said, “Why don’t you go over there and get a sucker from the nice lady and then come back to me?”  The little girl got her sucker, but she continued walking around the room.

“You need to be a good girl and get back on line,” the mother urged.  “If you’re not a good girl, the bank will take your sucker away from you.”

Suckers or other sweets are available in banks as a little something extra to please the customers, not to bribe children into submission.  Have you ever seen a bank employee take a sucker away from a naughty child?

It didn’t work.  The girl continued her expeditions as the mother remained in line.

This empty threat of the child losing her sucker calls to mind the song: “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.”  The song endows the Great Gift Giver with omniscience.  Children are warned to “watch out” and not to pout or cry because Santa is “comin’.”  Then the kiddies are given details of Santa’s great knowledge:  He knows whether they are asleep or awake and whether they’ve been bad or good.  He keeps a list and double-checks to see who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.

Eddie Cantor was an entertainer from the old Vaudeville stage shows as well as in early movies and the golden age of radio.  Cantor premiered “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town on his network radio show.  J. Fred Coots, a co-author of the song, was a writer for Cantor’s show. ¹ 

That song, which has been around since the 1930s, was followed a decade or so later by “Here Comes Santa Claus,” published and promoted in 1947 by another celebrity: Gene Autry, who starred in Western movies and had a radio show. ²  This song also confers virtual omniscience:  Santa loves all the little ones the same, whether they are rich or poor.  Furthermore, Santa knows they're all God’s children, which makes everything OK.

“Here Comes Santa Claus” goes an extra step, offering an outright sermonette regarding the Jolly Old Elf:  The tykes are encouraged to jump into their beds and cover their heads, after they hang their stockings and say their prayers, in anticipation of Santa Claus’s imminent arrival. They’re also admonished to give thanks to the Lord above and are assured that peace on earth will come to all who follow the light.

Both these songs have an element in common with the mother in the bank: They all attempt to manipulate children into obedience with deliberate misinformation.  The mother’s tactics are a poor approach to discipline for a young child.  The songs ascribing divine omniscience to Santa Claus contain faulty theology.

Neither song purports to be religious as such.  Both were written for popular commercial appeal rather than Sunday school instruction.  Still, they convey wrong impressions as they impute godlike knowledge to this mythical Bringer of Gifts.

No doubt, many parents use Santa Claus as an innocent game during their children’s formative years.  But if there is more than one child, parents often try to preserve and protect the innocence of young children when the firstborn connects the dots after discovering brightly wrapped presents in a closet.
Other parents consider Santa Claus almost as indispensable to proper observance of Christmas as Jesus. They see belief in Santa a veritable theological issue.  They hold on to the description an editor wrote in 1897.  It has been reprinted by hundreds of papers every Christmas since that date. ³  

Virginia O’Hanlon, an eight-year-old girl in New York City, had been told by school friends that Santa Claus was not real.  So she wrote to the editor of the old New York Sun, asking, “Is there a Santa Claus?”  Newsman Francis Pharcellus Church responded with an open letter to little Virginia:

“Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. .  .  .

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist  .  .  . Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! .  .  .

“ The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. .  .  .

“Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. 

“No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

This editorial is a beautiful poem, written to preserve that childhood innocence we noted earlier.  But if you remove the reference to fairies dancing on the lawn, the entire essay could be used as defense for belief in God.

Sad to say, some Christ-loving, church-going parents put more effort into protecting the Santa Claus fantasy than they put into helping their children understand the love God showed in sending His Only Begotten Son into the world at Christmas.

It’s easier to do Santa Claus for several reasons:  

*He’s everywhere -- on television, on the Internet, in newspapers, on billboards, and in stores, starting practically right after Labor Day, and on through the after-Christmas clearance at the mall.

*He’s also with our children in day care and kindergarten, at church, and in the neighborhood.  We didn’t do much Santa Claus with our boys.  But our younger son, Jonathan, brought Old St. Nick home with him when he saw and heard about him in all those places.

*Because Santa Claus is visible everywhere we look, it’s much easier for our kids to visualize and relate to him than to Jesus.  After all, Jesus shows up mostly through pictures in their Sunday school rooms and in lesson leaflets they bring home.

*For us as adults, it’s also more difficult to deal with the intangible, despite our deep desire to help our children in the formation of their faith.

*Even in this country, which many like to think of as a Christian nation, the effort to focus on the birth of Jesus is like a minority report.  And, in most cases, minority reports get laid on a shelf and forgotten.

But, with the awareness of visual impact in current technology, we as parents and grandparents can provide visuals in the home to supplement our effort to help our little loves understand a bit more about Jesus as the real center of Christmas:

• An Advent wreath with candles along with a brief verse or thought at mealtime 

• A creché with the biblical figures at a conspicuous location

• CDs and DVDs or older technology with age-appropriate focus on the biblical story

• Age-level books which include pictures that help tell the story of the birth of Jesus, along with the shepherds and angels from Luke 2, the Wise Men from Matthew 2, and Mary and Joseph in chapters 1 and 2 from both Luke and Matthew.

It’s worth the effort to keep oncoming generations informed of the good news, old but ever new.

¹ “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town by Eddie Cantor,” Songfacts, www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2423

² “Here Comes Santa Claus 60th Anniversary,” Gene Autry Centennial, 1907-2007.  www.autry.com/clubhouse/christmas/geneautry_hcscsong.html

³ Francis Pharcellus Church, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” www.newseum.org/yesvirginia

With sunny spells later

[This is another of several stories I intend to post from now through Christmas or perhaps New Year's.  This one first appeared in my Once for a Shining Hour,  available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon.com.]

Pansy and I have discovered food service and gift shops are commonly found in British churches.  This is true not only in massive cathedrals but in smaller local congregations as well.  Thus, a visit to a house of worship can readily provide food for the body as well as for the spirit.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields is a London church we have often visited.  The present building was built in 1726, but worship was conducted on the site at least as far back as A. D. 1222 when it was, indeed, surrounded by fields.  But nowadays, St. Martin’s is at Trafalgar Square in the heart of the city and no longer “in the fields.” ¹  We have been there for worship services and concerts and, not incidentally, the eatery in the basement, known as the Cafe in the Crypt.  
On a late afternoon near Christmas, we ducked in through St. Martin’s side door and down the steps of the Crypt to escape the winter chill.  In the cafeteria, we drank pots of tea and ate salads and soup, along with their incredibly delicious bread and butter pudding. 
St. Martin’s also has a reputation as a center for classical music dating back to 1700s when both Handel and Mozart at different times performed at the church. ²  An internationally famous orchestra based at the church was founded in the 1950s, known as the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
As we enjoyed our leisurely meal  that holiday season, the sound of an orchestra and  chorus rehearsing Christmas selections from Handel’s Messiah drifted down from the upper region of the building.   That oratorio lifts my spirits as few other musical selections can, any time of the year, but most of all at Christmas.
After we ate, we went into the adjoining shop where I saw a painting by British artist Joylene Lowrance.
People in the painting were braving the rain, some with umbrellas aloft, others with no protection from the elements.   I was drawn to the artwork, but I found the title particularly striking: “With Sunny Spells Later.”  I felt the artist was giving a “reverse spin” to our usual hopes concerning the weather:  We like to think clear skies are the norm, with occasional interference from rainy spells.  But Ms. Lowrances’s name for her painting suggests the opposite.
We didn’t buy the painting in the Crypt shop.  But I couldn’t get away from the thought that “Sunny Spells Later” describes the normal emotional and spiritual climate in many lives, perhaps especially in the Christmas season.
Sickness,  accidents, relations with difficult people, job loss or transfer, and death in the family are more common than we like to admit.  When these or other trying times bring dark clouds our way, perhaps we question God.  This just isn’t the things that are supposed to be.
Sandra Hayward Albertson’s book, Endings and Beginnings, tells of the struggle as she and her husband faced his inoperable cancer and her adjustment after his death.  She earned a master’s degree while her twin sister and brother-in-law provided housing and saw after her two young daughters.  Mrs. Albertson, regarding her husband’s illness, wrote these words, suggesting  the title of that painting:  

Health was to be the interlude with the natural course of the disease the main acts of the drama.  
What one tries to direct is a play with longer ‘intermissions’ in a tragedy that has little to offer 
in comic relief. ³ 

Another writer, Pete Greig in God on Mute, tells of his thirty-two-year-old friend Mike whose daughter was born with a serious physical disability and probably will never walk.  To complicate life further, Mike has been diagnosed with degenerative arthritis which threatens his career as a hiking, camping, cycling instructor.  As Mike reviewed his situation, he said this:

I guess I used to think .  .  .  I had some kind of divine right to happiness.  I mean, obviously 
I knew there was going to be the occasional rough patch but .  .  .  these days I find it easier 
to just accept that life’s rough .  .  . Why blame God for stuff that’s just the reality of life
  on a messed-up planet? ⁴ 

When it seems we are in endless periods of emotional and spiritual rain and storm, such as the foregoing quotes, we may echo the feelings of numerous psalms which are called laments.  Consider these excerpts from Psalm 39, one of the laments, in which the singer feels the Lord is sending difficulties upon him as he longs for “sunny spells”:
LORD, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is! Behold, thou hast made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in thy sight. Surely every man stands as a mere breath! Surely man goes about as a shadow!  Surely for nought are they in turmoil; man heaps up, and knows not who will gather!
.  .  . Make me not the scorn of the fool! I am dumb, I do not open my mouth; for it is thou who hast done it. Remove thy stroke from me;  I am spent by the blows of thy hand.  When thou dost chasten man with rebukes for sin, thou dost consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely every man is a mere breath!  
Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears! For I am thy passing guest, a sojourner, like all my fathers. Look away from me, that I may know gladness, before I depart and be no more!  (Psalm 39:4-6; 9-12).
A modern-day echo of the psalm’s lament is from Tevye, the dairyman in the musical Fiddler on the Roof.  In one of his many conversations with the Lord, Tevye points to himself and his fellow Jews as God’s Chosen People and wonders why God can’t choose somebody else for a change. ⁵
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Rainy Day,” tells us, “Into each life some rain must fall,” but we may wonder why cloudbursts come as we long for “sunny spells later.”  Longfellow also said, “Some days must be dark and dreary.” ⁶
The Advent season leading up to Christmas comes in the shortest days of the year, with much literal darkness.  In those days of lengthening night, as we read the Gospel accounts, Mary and Joseph are confronted by stormy times:  Mary is troubled when the angel tells her that she -- an unmarried woman who has never had relations with a man -- is to have a baby.  Joseph, likewise, is upset when Mary tells him the news.  He finds it difficult to believe she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit and not by a human father.  But angel messengers bring “sunny spells” by assuring, first Mary, then Joseph, that all this is the work of God.  So they see sunny spells as they travel for the census to Bethlehem, where their Son is born, announced by angels and visited by shepherds.
Christmas itself can bring emotional and spiritual stormy times which make us long for sunny spells later.  Perhaps some of the following scenarios describe our stormy spells:
*We spend time and energy making lists and then buying presents, perhaps spending more money than we we can afford for people who couldn’t care less for us or our gifts.
*We gain pounds as we eat and drink too much at dinners and parties, then face the New Year with resolutions to lose some of that excess weight.  Vows that seldom last till the end of January.
*We gather for festive meals or gift exchanges, apprehensive about whether Uncle Joe and 
Cousin Cynthia can peaceably remain in the same room for an hour or two.
*We shed tears of joy as dear ones arrive for a few days or maybe only a few hours.  Then we shed painful tears of goodbye when the visit ends, wondering when we will be together again. 
*We look around at empty seats, once filled by loved ones we cannot see again until the day when there will be no more parting.
*We see other chairs, left empty by younger members of the family serving in wars which have little meaning and no apparent ending.  Or those in long-term care.  Or those who live hundreds of miles away and are unable to make the trip with only one day off work.
*We sense the return of stormy times after the big meal and gift exchange as relatives and friends are called away by work schedules and resumption of classes.
But  when the rush and excitement are all over, perhaps, we are able to look back with gratitude for the sunny spells, short as they were.
Like Joseph and Mary, who see sunny spells after the Baby is born and after the shepherds return to their sheep, we can, with God’s help, determine to do the next thing.  
For the new parents, that next thing was to take their infant Son to the Temple for purification and dedication.  Then, just when Mary and Joseph began to enjoy sunny spells, the Wise Men came seeking the newborn King of the Jews. The men logically, but incorrectly, had gone to the palace.  This led King Herod to send out an order to kill all the little boy babies two years old or younger.  This, in turn, caused Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Baby.  But through it all, there were “sunny spells later” as God led the Holy Family to safety, away from the king’s threats.   
As we wait for sunny spells in our lives, we can pray for patience to wait for their arrival and for the faith to believe they will come.
These passages from Isaiah, which Christians see as fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, suggest “sunny spells” amid times of storm and darkness:
Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising (60:2-3).
  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast increased its joy; they rejoice before thee as with joy at the harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. . .  .  For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore.  The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this (9:2-3; 6-7).

¹ “The Story of St. Martin-in-the-Fields,” St. Martin in the Fields, www.smitf.org/page/aboutus/history.html.

² ”Evening Concerts,” www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/jserv/concerts/index.jsp.

³ Sandra Hayward Albertson, Endings and Beginnings.  New York: Random House, 1980, p. 44.

⁴ Pete Greig, God on Mute.  Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 2007, p. 122.

⁵ Joseph Stein, Fiddler on the Roof.  New York: Pocket Books, 1964.

⁶ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Rainy Day.”  Longfellow's Poetical Works.  Henry Frowde, London, Copyright 1893, www.litscape.com/author/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow/The_Rainy_Day.html.

The Truly Blessed Cadillac

[This is another of several stories I intend to post from now through Christmas or perhaps New Year's.  This one first appeared in my Christmas Memories from Seven to Seventy,  available in paperback from Amazon.com.]

Let me start with three confessions: 
I have never driven a Cadillac. 
I have ridden in Cadillacs very few times. 
I am prejudiced against Cadillacs.
Now, on with the story.

At the end of a Christmas trip, Pansy and I had spent the night in a motel en route home. We ate breakfast, loaded our car, and climbed in, ready to get on the road. As I turned the ignition switch,
I glanced across the way at a bumper plate on the front of a Cadillac which was parked facing us. The tag said, “Truly Blessed.”

I thought, “Yeah, I guess a person who drives a Caddy can brag about feeling truly blessed.” 

As we pulled out of our parking space, and I noticed the license tag on the Buick near us had a
“handicapped” symbol. My uncharitable, un-Christmasy attitude kicked in as I contrasted the two messages: the Buick with the “handicapped” tag and the “Truly Blessed” Cadillac. I could see a
good illustration shaping up for speaking or writing.

Let me help you understand my prejudice: 

When I was growing up, our family didn’t own a car of any make. Most of my peers in high school were driving family cars or farm trucks, but I just considered it a given that their families had
things my family didn’t have.

Lee Roy, my brother who was four years older than me, bought a car when he went to work full-time. In a burst of Christmas spirit, one Sunday afternoon near the holiday, he offered to teach me to
drive his straight-shift vehicle. He drove out on a road which wasn’t heavily trafficked, and we traded places.

I made several attempts to coordinate the clutch, the brake and the gear shift. Each time, the car responded by chugging, jumping, heaving and dying. After I made several abortive attempts, without
any spoken communication between us, Lee Roy and I reached the mutual conclusion that this wasn’t going to work. I turned off the switch, got out of the car, and walked around to the passenger side.

He said nothing to discourage this move. We were both relieved as we returned to our legitimate positions: he as driver and I riding shotgun. So much for his proffered Christmas gift.

I didn’t learn to drive until I was twenty-five and in my first full-time work. The only time I seriously got behind the wheel in those intervening years, I wrecked a used car which I had just bought. So
my history has given me an atypical outlook toward cars.

So why am I prejudiced toward Cadillacs? It’s not just Caddies. I probably would have had the same reaction to “Truly Blessed” on a Lincoln or a Beamer or a Mercedes. My reaction stemmed from growing up car-less. A big, expensive car seems ostentatious.

If I’d read “Truly Blessed” on a lower-range Chevy or Ford – or even an old beat-up Cadillac – I wouldn’t have considered it a boast. But a shiny, new Caddy was different.

I guess you could say I feel “Truly Blessed” driving a Honda which we bought new, but I certainly wouldn’t put a sign like that on my bumper.

I have dear friends who drive Cadillacs. I don’t consider them ostentatious. The difference? I know these people. Similarly, if we know someone close up  from another region or race or religion, our stereotypes toward his or her larger group don’t usually apply because we know that person. 

Someone said prejudice is “being down on some something you’re not up on.”

I wanted to confirm my prejudice against the Cadillac owner.  So, as we left the motel parking lot, I drove out of my way to get behind the Cadillac and look at the tag. I expected to see a vanity tag like “Truly Blessed.” 

I gasped as I saw the Cadillac’s official state license plate. Like the Buick I saw earlier, the Caddy
also had the “handicapped” symbol. 

I had my illustration, all right, but not the one I had expected.

After I had time to reflect on both the front and back bumpers on the Cadillac – “Truly Blessed,” coupled with “handicapped” – my spirit was more in keeping with the true spirit of Christmas:


Now I felt “Truly Blessed.”

Pumpkin soup for Christmas

[This is another of several stories I intend to post from now through Christmas or perhaps New Year's.  This one first appeared in my Christmas Memories from Seven to Seventy,  available in paperback from Amazon.com.]

The menu item caught my eye: Pumpkin soup. It had been a long time since I had eaten pumpkin soup.

At that earlier time – during a Christmas season – Russell was in first or second grade, Jonathan was pre-school.

Now the “boys” were adults in the working world. Jonathan had just gotten married. We were in Chicago for the first get-together of his and Vicky’s families.

I wasn’t going to call attention to the pumpkin soup listing on the menu because that earlier encounter with the soup hadn’t gone quite the way I’d planned.

That earlier pumpkin soup episode was one I hoped no one would recall.

It happened when Pansy had a death in her family near the holidays, so she left the boys in my care in Birmingham for a few days while she went by plane to the funeral in North Carolina.

I don’t remember a great deal about getting the boys up and ready for school or retrieving them in the afternoon. About all I remember of those days as Mr. Mom was that it fell my lot to prepare food for the three of us.

The primary weapon in my cooking arsenal was, and still is, a can opener. If a cooking problem can’t be solved with that weaponry, forget it. So, with opener at the ready, as I looked in the cupboard, my eye fell on a can of pumpkin.

On the label was a recipe for pumpkin soup. Intended as a dessert. This would be an interesting and different ending for supper, so I lurched into action, using the entire can of pumpkin, enough for a family of eight.

My soup turned out smooth and creamy, a chilled liquefied version of Everybody’s Thanksgiving Favorite. I love pumpkin pie for the holidays. I thought the boys did too. So the three of us would enjoy the pumpkin soup, each of us having at least two servings. Not a lot left over at the end of the meal.

It didn’t turn out quite that way.

After a meal of canned veggies and canned meat, I brought out my dessert from a can, sure it would  be the piéce de résistance. Instead, it was a plain piece of resistance.

After clearing the table and carrying the dishes to the sink, I reentered, triumphantly bearing the soup and setting a bowl before each boy.

With equally curious looks and mouths turned down in frowns, Russell and Jonathan asked as one, “What is THAT?”

“Pumpkin soup!” I said happily.

“What?”

“Pumpkin soup!” I said again, this time with less certainty.

“Do we have any ice cream?” Russell asked.

“Fellows,” I said, with a growing defensiveness. “This is pumpkin soup. A special holiday dessert.”

“Soup isn’t for dessert, Dad,” Russell said.

“This one is!” I said. “Try it this once. You might change your mind.”

“What kind of ice cream is in the fridge?” Jonathan asked.

To cut to the chase: neither boy would touch the stuff. I begged. I pled. I threatened. I probably cried genuine tears. To no avail.

They may have liked pumpkin pie, but pumpkin soup? I was left with the whole pot of soup all to myself. It was sweet and tasty, but much of the anticipated enjoyment faded, since I had no one to
share it with.

I don’t remember pumpkin soup ever being mentioned again in our family until we were all in that restaurant in Chicago years later. I had assumed this dark episode was dead and buried. Then, as we
sat with menus in hand, I saw under appetizers the listing for pumpkin soup. I intended to maintain a dignified silence and quietly order a cup.

But soup silence was not to be. Russell also saw the menu listing, and he remembered the pumpkin soup episode from Holiday Long Past.

“Dad,” Russell said with a mischievous grin and a twinkle in his eyes. “Did you see they have pumpkin soup on the menu?”

“Yeah, Russell” I said, trying to sound indifferent. “I noticed that.”

“Are you going to get some pumpkin soup, then?”

It seemed that all conversation stopped, awaiting my answer.

“Why, yes,” I said, trying to project a boldness I did not feel.

Sandy, Vicky’s mom, turned toward Pansy and asked, “Is that something your family enjoys?”

“Well…” Pansy said hesitantly.

I wasn’t sure how much she remembered about the earlier notorious incident. After she returned home, I must have shared something of my feeling of defeat over the rejected soup.

Russell jumped in, recounting, “Dad fixed some pumpkin soup one time while Mom was away.”

“Did you like it?” Vicky’s dad, Dave, wanted to know.

“No,” Russell said, still grinning. “Not really.”

Vicky asked Jonathan, “Did you like it?”

“I don’t remember it at all,” Jonathan said with a shrug.

“Surely you both tried it after your dad went to the trouble of fixing it,” Sandy pled.

Russell shook his head: “No. Neither of us took the first sip. I don’t know what Dad did with it. He may have poured it out.”

“I did no such thing!” I retorted. “I ate it all by the time Mom got back home. It was good! Why don’t all of you try some tonight?”

No such luck. 

Not that I really expected it. Neither of our sons was any more interested in sampling this delicacy in adulthood than he had been in childhood. Likewise Pansy or Vicky or her parents, or her sister or brother or his girl friend.

When the appetizers were brought out, people asked questions:

“Are you really going to eat that?”

“Did you order to be a good sport?”

I answered by reaching for my soup spoon and taking the first taste.

“How does it compare?”

“It’s good,” I said. “But it’s different.”

Sandy seemed the most interested: “How is it different?”

“Well, mine was pureed. This soup tonight has small chunks of pumpkin. Mine was sweeter. It was a dessert.”

Not wanting to offend anyone, I added, “This is good, but mine was better.”

Because no one else ate pumpkin soup either that night or in antiquity, no one could argue with my judgment call.

The soup was followed by a hearty meal and a pleasant, leisurely evening as our newly-connected families began to get acquainted.

The soup proved to be an interesting momentary topic. Then the conversation moved on. No more was said about it, even as with the first pumpkin soup.

Afterward, the soup story set me wondering: 

What other childhood incidents have my sons put on cold storage .  .  . waiting for the right prompt to bring them out for further discussion? 

A quarter century later, are their memories carrying greater significance than pumpkin soup, waiting to be brought out? 

Issues of diet? 

Tests of will? 

Times when they sought fatherly encouragement but were rebuffed? 

Times when fatherly affection was offered but they didn’t quite know how to respond? 

With my sons in Chicago and New York and with me in South Carolina, those opportune moments are few and far between.