Preserving A Festival Of Hope

By Eugene J. McCarthy



One should not take Christmas for granted, though it has managed to survive "Jingle Bells" and even "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus."

It has survived biblical scholarship that questions the time and place of the Nativity and raises doubts as to whether or not the Three Wise Men ever went to Bethlehem. It has survived the new theology that says Easter's religion mystery is of greater significance that that of Christmas.

Christmas has even survived civil liberties organizations pledged to eliminate the observance of the day from schools.

Christmas has, so far, withstood the threat of artificial trees and plastic ornaments.

Its strength lies in the fact that Christmas is a celebration of hope, and hope dies hard. Hope is a special virtue of children and a special need of adults.
Hope is very difficult to describe or to represent in sign or symbol. One can only work around it, leaving empty spaces to be filled.

There are five or six important guides that, I believe, would help protect and preserve Christmas as a festival of hope.

The first is that the tree should be real. It should threaten to fade and lose its needles before the end of the holiday season. The ornaments should not be plastic or permanent, but should be fragile and breakable. One or two should be broken each year. The rest should be saved, carefully packed away from year to year.

The wrapping of gifts with special Christmas paper, a practice that developed to its present strength during the Great Depression, when people had little to give, should be continued. It is, I think, also a good practice to save paper and boxes from one Christmas to the next, in anticipation of sending presents, even though the paper or boxes in most cases are not reused.

The saving of them is an act of hope.

There are no set rules for gifts to adults, but as to children's gifts, there are some worthy of note.

Obviously, there should be toys, but among those toys should be one or two that will not last much beyond the Christmas season. A drum for a boy, as an example, which he will play knowing that it will not last long and knowing also that it may well be the last drum he will ever be given.

There should be at least one gift that cannot be used until another season, thus giving in winter a dream of spring or summer, or fall.

I am against new pets as Christmas gifts. Old pets are fine at Christmas, but new pets are a distraction and, in any case, deserve separate attention.

In cold climates, at least one gift should be something to keep one warm.

Other holidays appeal to one or two of the senses, but Christmas appeals to all five: taste with its special foods; touch with fire and warmth; hearing with music; and sight with trees and tinsel. More than any other holiday, Christmas also respects the sense of smell. Among the threee gifts brought to Bethlehem by the Wise Men, The Scriptures tell us that two - frankincense and myrrh - appealed to the sense of smell. So Christmas should be remembered for the scents of pine, oranges, ginger and cloves.

Former Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota died Dec. 10, 2005