“But it’s Christmas”
By: Marty Rueter, Executive Vice President
“There’s no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.”
~ Bill McKibben
It’s Christmas! “Immanual (God) is with us.” No, “Succumb to another media contrived shopping marathon!” Thanks to humanity and Amazon, there’s online shopping, Facebook, and email greetings to save trees, gas, postage, and intimate conversation during this three-month spending binge. This winter’s solstice is no more or less joyous, poignant or sacred than the sixty-some others I’ve endured, then reluctantly enjoyed. Each year I try to stay above this guilt-ridden, secular seduction. “But it is Christmas,” people keep telling me, hoping to nudge me out of my perennial “Bah Humbug” broodiness. Has “ho-hum” permanently replaced “ho-ho-ho?”
It’s not getting any easier … avoiding the “evergreen” hype. It’s starts earlier and earlier nowadays, right after Labor Day. Wal Mart is transformed overnight – its aisles of fertilizer and pool chemicals replaced with garland and gift wrap; the perspiring greeter sports a faux-felt Santa cap. Street lamps hang placards of Frosty, Rudolph, fat and skinny Santa’s. Salvation Army kettles reappear, their bell ringers still in sandals and shorts. At first, I scoff and resist, but drop in a buck, then another. Yet somehow between the first Norelco commercial and The Christmas Story (my favorite), I catch the Christmas spirit! Like the Asian flu that fouls the air this time of year, unwittingly, inevitably.
Despite my Scroogeness, those gushy TV commercials penetrate my subconscious, transforming me into a whimsical child again, humming Perry Como tunes, helping Mom bake her date nut cookies… remembering not to lick any flagpoles or “shoot your eye out?” Each year I dig out the 8-millimeter, soundless movies we transferred to VHS, then to DVDs. An aluminum tree? More recent videos are there too, mostly of Nicholas riding his new trike, ripping open the carefully wrapped presents, Ninja Turtle-like. Then there’s me, a plumper Santa then, narrating the Nativity story and “The Night Before Christmas” – Nicholas nestled snugly against me in his red Oshkosh PJ’s; Toni in her Falcon Crest hair and thick NFL shoulder pads. The sleepwear and hairstyles laughably change as we progress from video to video, but never the constant message of God’s love for each of us.
CHARLIE BROWN could be right. Christmas isn’t just another holiday; it’s a state of mind that ought to survive our New Years revelry. Christmas is a decision…that everyone, everything are interconnected, that each of us is a child of God, equally important, though differently blessed; that even the scrawniest balsa or fir is beautiful and worthy of our attention and awe.
You don’t need tinsel or trimmings to give back more that you get; to tolerate more and lash out less; to see that solitary star against even the blackest night, faithful, hopeful, compassionate, bright and steady. There’s a glimmer of Christmas following natural disasters, but then disappears as the TV hype dissipates, and we return to our daily doings of self-righteousness, greed, self-absorption. Like the reindeer shedding its antlers, all of us need this annual molting, to shed the hardheartedness that shields us, but stifles our ability to live more fully, love less selfishly – to spread those angelic “glad tidings” of peace and goodwill to all.