This morning my local radio station let the listeners vote to decide when they would start playing Christmas music. The Hallmark Movie Channel started showing Christmas movies last week. Facebook is full of posts calling for the start of Christmas season ASAP!
What happened to the loud calls to boycott any store displaying ornaments and wreaths and Santas before Thanksgiving, let alone November 1st? So why are we so ready for Christmas? The answer isn’t that complicated. In 2001, on September 11th, terrorists hijacked four civilian airplanes and crashed them into strategic targets. The killed thousands of Americans. They shattered our naivety. They crushed our trust. They broke our hearts. They cracked our foundation. Not long after, that same local radio station that took the poll this morning, decided to start Christmas music early. With hurricanes wrecking our coastal communities and crazy men shooting concert goers and Isis devotees running down bicyclists, is it any wonder that we once again need healing? Maybe Christmas can have the magic power to heal us. Maybe we’ll remember Ebeneezer Scrooge and the Grinch and Mama kissing Santa Claus and Baby Jesus and understand that love really does conquer all. Longfellow’s famous Christmas hymn tells the story a man in despair who hears the Christmas bells and hangs his head because “there is no peace on earth”. Hate prevails and mocks the idea that love could conquer anything. Longfellow wrote the words when with an empty heart. His wife had recently died from burns sustained in a house fire. Flames had permanently scarred his face, a reminder of his failure to save her. In addition, his beloved America was torn in war. Christmas to him was now meaningless. Yet the man in the hymn listens more closely. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor does He sleep, For Christ is here; His Spirit near Brings peace on earth, good will to men.” In his wretched sadness, Longfellow found peace. He believed in it. He wrote his belief into the most beautiful hymn so that more than a hundred years later, we could find it, too. So, yes, we are more than ready for Christmas. If it takes holly and mistletoe and Hallmark movies and gingerbread carbs and even those ugly giant inflatables people stake to their yards to remind us that peace is possible, then bring it on. Bring it on through April if you have to. Let’s hope America’s heart grows three sizes. Let’s hope we all shout to the rooftops, “God Bless Us Everyone.” And let’s hope and pray the Christmas spirit does, indeed, last all year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDee Linn loves words. When she was in the third grade, her exasperated teacher told her she'd probably talk to a pole, if she happen to be sitting beside it. Not much has changed except that now she says it in writing. She is a single mom of four, a teacher of teens, a cheater at board games, and a lover of life. She's a Kansas girl, but travels to all kinds of places in her head with characters living there, some of which she's sure she's created. Some, she's not sure how they got there. But they are way more interesting to talk to than a pole. Archives
November 2017
Categories
|