It’s the simple things that mark the arrival of the holidays at Chez Rochat.
Things like discovering which of our pre-lit tree’s lights have pre-burned out, so that we can have the stimulating mental exercise of finding and untangling our old string.
Or the eternal debate as to whether decorating is better done to the strains of John Denver and a chorus of Muppets, or Alvin and his band of helium-voiced chipmunks. (Making the tally “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!!” versus one “HUUUU-LA HOOOOP!”)
But never is Christmas more surely on the way than when the subsonic tones of Thurl Ravenscroft begins rumbling from our television speakers.
If you don’t recognize the name, I dare you to read the following words without hearing it in his distinctive voice:
“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,
You really are a heel …”
OK, how many sang along?
Thought so.
In a time when traditions seem to have the lifespan of a Raiders fan on Bronco Sunday, a family’s holiday movie choices are all but unshakeable. I have known people who could do without sleigh bells and snow, but would consider the season incomplete if it passed without just one more viewing of Die Hard. (“Yippie-ki-yay to all, and to all a good night.”)
It’s comforting. Reassuring. Familiar, to the point where if the TV burned out, everyone could quote their film of choice letter-perfect – in between jokes about which Clark W. Griswold light display burned things out this time.
For us, it’s a quartet: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Story (yes, the never-ending chronicle of the Red Ryder BB gun) and the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol. These old-school classics have dominated the networks, our shelf space, and significant portions of our family’s gray matter, to the point where we can mentally count down the moments until Ralphie “didn’t say fudge” or the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come rolls through the graveyard on a hidden scooter board. (Hey, special effects are expensive.)
But these four have a lot more in common than their deathless production values. In each case, the story centers around what we think we want versus what we need.
Charlie Brown sets lights and aluminum trees against “what Christmas is all about.” Whoville celebrates not the stolen gifts, but the togetherness that lay at their foundation. Mr. Scrooge famously has his priorities shifted in one night, and even Ralphie’s story, the most materialistic of them all, is less about actually getting the coveted BB gun (which – spoiler alert – loses its charm after one accident, anyway) and more about getting a grown-up to actually listen to him for once and take him seriously.
In each case, it’s not about the stuff. It never really was.
OK, maybe it’s a little corny to say it out loud. But at a time when most of us are frantically trying to get through the holiday decathlon, maybe it’s not bad to claim a moment of quiet and think about why we’re doing all this, beyond muscle memory and social expectation.
Is it just about easily-torn paper and misplaced decorations? Does it really come down to whether we can make enough clicks on Amazon before time and money run out?
Or is there something else? Something not just limited to a few weeks in December?
That’s the real gift. And it’s one we’re all going to need going forward.
Though if you still want that hula hoop, I completely understand.
Lighting Hope
I’d gotten halfway across town when Santa Claus mugged me.
OK, not literally. There’s no need to call the fine folks of the Longmont Police Department and report a jolly old man with a fur hat and a blackjack, making a getaway in a reindeer-powered sleigh with one (red) headlight. The year’s been strange, but not that strange – yet.
No, this time Santa was part of a yard display that seemed to pop out of nowhere, complete with lights and color and holiday cheer. Normal enough for the holiday season. But a bit striking when it’s several days before Thanksgiving.
Missy, of course, was delighted. Our disabled ward eagerly plays Christmas carols in the middle of July. If Longmont were to break out in colored lights immediately after Labor Day, she’d probably break out in cheers that could be heard as far as Lyons – right before insisting on seeing every display, every night.
Not everyone is in her camp, of course. As stores increasingly deck the halls with holiday merchandise right after Halloween, I’ve seen the more-than-occasional post on social media, all of it set to a common theme: “What happened to Thanksgiving?”
I understand it, believe me. When I worked in the now-vanished City Newsstand bookstore, Christmas music and decorations were strictly forbidden until Black Friday. The dire penalties were never explicitly spelled out, but presumably included a lengthy spell on the Naughty list and a stocking full of coal.
But these days, I’m not really bothered by a chorus of “Oh, Early Light.” For a couple of reasons.
First, I figure Thanksgiving can take care of itself. Where other holidays cry out, Thanksgiving is about drawing in. It doesn’t require fireworks or dazzling displays, just a table to share and a spirit of gratitude. Its one garish parade, the Macy’s march, is really more of a start-of-Christmas celebration, with cartoon balloons and forgettable pop ballads mixed in. Thanksgiving doesn’t need to shout. It just needs a space to be.
Secondly, in this year of all years, I’m not about to refuse light and cheer from any source.
It’s been a hard one, with a lot of fear, anger and uncertainty that isn’t over yet. One (out-of-state) friend has had family threatened. Another found a friend’s car had been covered with hateful graffiti. In so many places, online and off, battle lines have been drawn.
Mind you, election years are often divisive. But this one has taken it to a power of 10, not least because it’s left so many unsure of their future or fearful that they don’t have one. It’s a time when we need to be standing by each other and saying “You will not be forgotten” – as a promise, not a threat.
But threats are in the air.
I’ll say it again – we need each other. Every time we isolate, every time we declare someone unworthy of a place at the table, we weaken the whole family. Every time we turn aside from someone who needs our comfort, our support, our help, we break one more bond and undermine one more foundation of our common life.
If a few lights can remind us that joy drives out hate, I’ll welcome them.
If an early carol or two can send out the call for peace and understanding, I’ll join the chorus.
This isn’t about burying discord under a carpet of tinsel and plastic snowmen. It’s about recognizing the pain and reaching out to heal. It’s about seeing the darkness and driving it back so that we can find each other … and ourselves, as well.
There’s a Christmas carol I’ve quoted in this space before, taken from the despair and hope of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Its final verses are worth evoking one more time.
And in despair, I bowed my head,
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said,
‘For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men.’
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
‘God is not dead, nor doth he sleep,
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.’
May we give that peace to one another and a true Thanksgiving with it.
May that be our proudest decoration.
The Next Duty
When I lived in Emporia, Kansas, the week of Veterans Day was always one of the highlights of the year. During the week-long celebrations, all of us would be reminded that we owed our veterans three basic things:
1) To care for the veterans we already have.
2) To create as few additional veterans of war and conflict as possible.
3) To take the nation they protected and continue to make it something special.
The first point continues to fuel many a speech and editorial, often with a nod to the needs of the aging VA hospital system. The second remains a common desire for those in and out of uniform, especially after this country spent so many years fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But with Election Day now falling into the rear-view mirror, maybe the final item is worth looking at once more. What kind of America are we building?
I know, we’re all sick to death of campaign speeches. And campaign mailers. And television ads. And telephone surveys that ask for “just a few moments of our time.” (As my old math teachers might have said, “a few” times several calls per day equals “a LOT.”) This isn’t meant to join that particular chorus, and I think all of you might run me out of town if I tried, after dipping me in tar, feathers, and a burning copy of the film from the last Oakland Raiders game.
But the fact is, there’s still a job ahead of us.
True, the most basic job is done. And many of us tend to think of voting as the greatest duty we owe our country, to fill in the bubbles, drop off our ballots, and then either cheer or curse at the results before getting on with our lives.
But it doesn’t stop there. It never did. It’s a necessary first step, but there’s a lot of staircase left to climb.
Yes, we’ve chosen our leaders. Yes, they can make choices that help or hurt a lot of us. But most of what this nation can be is on us.
Do we lift up the weak or chase them from our doorstep?
Do we greet our neighbors with love and acceptance or with jeers and mockery? Do we even know our neighbors when we see them?
Do we carefully watch the steps of those we’ve elected and call them to task when they need reminding? Or do we just hand them the keys and go back to sleep?
Do we look for ways to build, to welcome, to aid, to defend? Or are we more interested in tearing down, in separating, in spurning the unworthy and attacking the strange?
Our answers will do more to define America than any war or legislation ever could.
The Christian songwriter Don Francisco once wrote that God didn’t care about the height of church steeples or the loudness of hymns, but whether the people inside cared for their family, their neighbors, and the rest of the world:
Are you living as a servant to your sisters and your brothers?
Do you make the poor man beg you for a bone?
Do the widow and the orphan cry alone?
I have heard from many people who are afraid of what might happen next, who find their future uncertain. So much of that is in our hands. What we say. What we do. What we’ll tolerate and what we’ll rise up to oppose.
What answer will we give?
The words of the African-American poet Langston Hughes, written more than 80 years ago, still echo:
O, yes,
I say it plain,
American never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!
Today and always, we must build the America our veterans swore to defend.
What America will it be?
Hitting Reset
The Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians had reached the height of their battle for a history-shaking triumph when I heard the thumps, like elephants dancing a tango overhead.
One thump usually meant our 85-pound dog Blake had jumped on the bed for the night. Two could mean he’d gotten down to try a different spot. Multiple thumps from the wrong side of the house meant … what?
I dashed upstairs, traced the noise. Missy’s bedroom. Inside, our disabled ward was on the floor with all her blankets underneath her. She’d fallen out of bed, and then started hitting the ground in frustration rather than get up.
“Missy! Are you OK?”
Physically, she was. No broken bones, no obvious injuries of any kind as I helped her back up and onto her mattress. But still she cried, a night interrupted in the worst possible way.
My wife Heather appeared in the doorway. “Oh, honey,” she said, sympathy in every word. “Do you want a little more of your story?”
Missy nodded. I pulled out the book that had been set down just before the lights went out. And soon, we were smiling and giggling at tales of adventure and ridiculous exertion on a world that would never be.
The world had been made right again. All was restored to its place. And after the lights went out, I went back to our bedroom to thank Heather for the suggestion.
“A lot of times, it just helps to go back to doing what you were doing before,” she said.
A reset button.
It seemed too simple to be true. And yet, I knew what she was talking about.
In case I was too slow to get it the first time, the larger world was re-enacting it downstairs. The Cubs had seemingly been in the midst of one more traumatic collapse, from a 5-1 lead to a 6-6 tie, when a rain delay had hit in the 10th inning. The brief stop gave the Cubs time to come together, rally, and clear their heads before returning to the field to get the job done.
“Because they met, they pumped themselves up and won that inning,” Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer told the Chicago Tribune after the renewed team brought home its first championship in 108 years.
“(Right fielder Jason Heyward) said ‘Let’s forget about everything up to this point. Let’s believe we can do this,’” the night’s MVP, Ben Zobrist, told the paper.
Forget. Reset. Renew.
Easy to say. Easy to forget.
I’m stubborn. Many of us are. It’s tempting to focus on the frustration, on what’s not working, on what’s worse and not getting better. It feels good, in a perverse way, to pound the floor and cry.
But it doesn’t get you anywhere.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve walked away from a piece I was writing that went nowhere, or a tedious chore that had gone south. Not for good, just to clear my head before taking a fresh run from the last place that worked. As Sir Paul McCartney put it, to “get back to where you once belonged.”
It was going right. And it can be again.
Forget. Reset. Renew.
The night ended with a smiling Missy, back in bed, the covers safely around her.
The night ended with an exultant baseball team, charging the field, sleep postponed by jubilation.
The night ended – but the lesson went on. Simple and clear.
No tango-dancing elephants needed.