Christmas is the one day of the year when there seem to be no rules. Anything is possible. People can even love each other and be kind to one another.
We buy gifts for each other and discover the joy of giving. That one time of year, we try hard to please a few other people by buying or making them the gift they have always wanted.
It's also the one time of year when we hear songs and carols in public about the birth and worship of our Saviour. So, hearing those familiar songs lifts our hearts. It's Christmas cheer.
Remember the "Spirit of Christmas Present" that comes to visit Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens? He held a horn of some kind full of Christmas cheer and when he waved his horn at people, they would suddenly forget to be mean to each other. Scrooge asked him what was in his horn and he said,
"It's a spirit, five times distilled, the spirit of Christmas cheer, of love, of all that's good and all that makes this time of year different from any other time."
Scrooge asks, "Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle?"
"An excellent flavour."
"Would it apply to any kind of dinner?" Scrooge asks.
"To a poor one most." the Spirit answers.
"Why to a poor one most?"
"Because it needs it most," he replies. They say that Charles Dickens was the man who invented Christmas. That's because, in his day, people were moving to the cities in droves and their employees did not like to give their workers a day off. Bob Cratchet's working conditions were similar to many others and many others were much worse off.
In the 17th Century, English Puritan Christians actually tried to outlaw Christmas but without much success. At the turn of the 19th Century, however, Christmas had almost vanished from the scene. It was thanks to Dickens' popular novel that Christmas was revived.
Many of us grew up on the story of Scrooge, revisited in movie and book form every Yule Tide.
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| A Manger Scene in front of a house in Calgary, Alberta |
Scrooge's nephew puts it in a nutshell:
"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round --apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
The part I don't like is where he says, "... in the long calendar of the year..."
That Christmas lasts for one day of the year and then, it's over is what I DON'T like about Christmas.
🎍 🎄 🎄 🎄 🎄
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