Christmas

I loved Christmas as a kid, and I can prove it. From 1948, when I was 9, my dad captured each Christmas with his 8mm movie camera. They fit the same pattern, a before and after story: the tree before my brother and I attacked the presents, traditional, the hub of many presents; then the kids opening presents and later mom and occasionally mom would shoot dad opening a present; and then later, outside usually, my brother and I with a favorite present, one year myself in a football uniform and a football, or with a bow and arrow, or with a new bike.

After I left home, I never again spent Christmas in the company of kids. Christmas began to be less significant to me. Even as a kid, it was never about Jesus' birthday in our house. I never recall hearing anything about that. I was about relatives and presents and special foods. As a young adult, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday because for a decade it was about a gathering of friends, about a dozen of us, year after year for several days of eating and drinking and music making. After my divorce, I dropped out of the ritual and Thanksgiving lost its significance to me.

So sports events became more important, more wedded to ritual, than holidays. First and foremost, the Army-Navy game, on which I was raised as a Navy brat, followed closely by the Rose Bowl, our hometown game (and parade). I also religiously watched the Triple Crown races, the summer Olympics, March Madness. Often the World Series, though the Little League counterpart interested me as much as the big leagues.

Christmas today strikes me as a time when most folks seem to be especially nice -- at least if you engage them out of the mall. It's a time of hope. Sometimes the hope rings shallow to me, as with the Pope's annual message, always predictable, let's pray for world peace, this as the horror of war reigns someplace or other, always, and his words sound pathetic and sad and ignorant. The hope of Christmas is in the dynamic of families, families with children, as parents strive to give their kids meaning for the future. It's a noble task.

The hope of Christmas is the movie It's A Wonderful Life, that the theme of this classic might actually be true, at least now and again, at least somewhere, among some group of people. That this might not be too much to ask.