7 posts tagged “christmas”

I wrote about the emergence of "River" as a new Christmas standard last year.  I'm sure the New Republic writers must be reading this blog, and that's why they're jumping on my bandwagon. 

Today my husband and I were shopping downtown, and we wandered into our local witch store.  We stayed true to our holiday tradition of browsing around the store and not buying anything (we are cheapskates).  We walked out of the store and stood for a second on the sidewalk, regrouping and deciding where to go next, and suddenly the proprietor ran out of the store carrying a three-panel room divider.  She thrust it in our hands, saying to my husband, "You've been wanting to buy this for her for three years.  Happy Yule!"  Indeed, my husband has been coveting this item for a long time and had asked to buy it, but the divider was not for sale; it was part of the store's fixtures.

Merchants don't usually go around giving stuff away at Christmas time, especially in the tourist town where we live.   I was incredibly touched by her generosity to people that she doesn't know and who are scarcely good customers, since we never actually buy anything there.  What a sweetie.  Hmm,  I wonder if the upscale gift store down the  street, owned by the Moravian church, would give their stuff away.  Somehow I doubt it.

The December 21st Washington Post has an article about Joni Mitchell's song "River" showing up on all the Christmas albums this year:

I'm so glad to see it.  "Both Sides Now" has been covered umpteen million times and that's nice, but if "River" works its way into the Christmas canon, that will mean royalty pennies not just for Joni but for her grandchildren!

 In honor of the winter solstice, here's a verse from Susan Cooper, who wrote it for the
Christmas Revels in the 1970s.

The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive.

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, reveling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us - listen!

All the long echoes, sing the same delight,

This Shortest Day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!

The song that seems to be popping up on all the holiday CDs this year is Joni Mitchell’s River.  The most high profile covers are on Sarah McLachlan’s  beautiful CD, Wintersong, and on James Taylor at Christmas.  It’s also been covered by Linda Ronstadt, Robert Downey Jr, and even Barry Manilow (ouch).

This is not your typical Christmas song.  It is sad.  It is unsentimental. It is unflinchingly honest.  It is Joni.  I never used to think of it as a Christmas song, but I guess it fits in nicely  with that subgenre of Morose Holiday Music (with Blue Christmas, First Christmas Away from Home, the original Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and of course, oh my god,  the Coventry Carol).  

Awhile back, Joni was talking about releasing a Morose Christmas CD of her own, but it looks like that isn’t going to happen.  She is recording a new album of original material, though, which is supposed to be released in 2007.  Watch this space.

I am a humanist, which is a way to say I’m an atheist without getting immediately beaten up.  You might expect me to be pretty cynical about Christmas, but you’d be wrong.  Not only do I keep a big, exuberant Christmas, I keep a Christmas that has spirit and depth and meaning way beyond the shopping mall ethos of our times, if I may say so myself. 

I even have a nativity scene in my living room.  I probably don’t have any right to have one, but the Christmas story has always resonated with me.  It’s full of such human, homely details like unwed pregnancy and the tedium of travel and overbooked hotels.  The idea of the big, big God taking the form of a tiny human baby is so moving to me.

For me as a humanist, Christmas is about hope, as exemplified in the birth of any baby, let alone a baby god.  It is about the human potential for good.  It is about social justice, raising poor folk and casting down the proud.  It is about what is beautiful about being human on this green earth.  It is not a fast day.  It is not about atonement or even, particularly, about reverence.  It is a feast day.  Look at all the delights for our human senses that this holiday affords us:  the music, the food, the decorations, the smells, the food. 

My Christmas even has a written gospel, of sorts.  It’s the Gospel of Dickens.  A Christmas Carol argues for a Christmas spirit that encompasses “liberality,” justice, forgiveness and the basic human right of frivolity.  The references to Jesus in that book are few indeed. I wouldn’t say that Jesus is beside the point.  I would say perhaps that the existence of Jesus is sufficient, but not necessary, for the ethic that Dickens is presenting.

Maybe my Christmas mania is just a reflection of my northern European blood that needs to light candles against the darkness. So why do I call this holiday Christmas when I reject the notion of Christ?  Because that’s what I grew up calling it, and because the phrase “winter holiday” is really lame.

It's December 1st; let the holiday madness begin!  Although I kvetch incessantly about the sappy music, the consumerism, and the incredibly frightening inflatable decorations showing up on everybody's lawns, I do love this season.  The music is actually my favorite part - not the radio and department store pablum, though.  Perennial favorite CDs are Bright Day Star by The Baltimore Consort, Christmas by Bruce Cockburn, and December in Vermont by Diane Ziegler (that last is quietly stunning, and an absolute must if you're a folkie).  I've always been a sucker for an English boys' choir, although having just finished reading Lord of the Flies with my book discussion group, the whole choir thing just feels creepy.