Posted on 12/23/2005 4:32:41 AM PST by saveliberty
By Tony Snow
Dec 23, 2005
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Adults sometimes torture themselves with remembrances of Christmases past, worrying that the magic of the season has bypassed them somehow, and forever.
We fret that we have forgotten something vital. Christmas seemed so special when we were young, and it seems that way to our kids even now. Somehow, they have figured out the holidays. They know how to balance the sacred and the profane. They know how to take a season and turn it into a seemingly endless chain of occasions for surprise and joy.
Year in, year out, they endure the delicious torture of crouching in wait for Santa, so they celebrate later by shredding wrapping paper and making merry with the Jolly One's leavings.
Yet they also listen intently to the story of a babe destined to become the greatest man in history. They seem to take to the idea that we're all born into greatness, and they have no difficulty imagining God's making his way to earth. In other words, they can suspend belief and embrace faith at the same time.
Plus, they remember.
When I was a boy, we attended a small church. Each Christmas Eve, we all got two things as we entered: A candle and a sheet of lyrics to best-known carols. Toward the end of the service, someone would turn off the sanctuary lights. Rev. Ramsdell would light a single candle and step down to share his flame with the nearest congregant. That person would tip the candle toward the next person.
And as we bellowed hymns of praise to the newborn king, the fire snaked its way through the room, dancing and hurling shadows. I could feel the flickering light push against the blackness of the night, and I could imagine a lantern in Bethlehem.
A child experiences Christmas as magic -- as a shimmering moment when the impossible becomes possible through means youngsters don't dare try to understand, and cannot afford to doubt.
Unfortunately, time has a way of rubbing away the magic. Adults learn the tricks of the season, and distract themselves with a welter of duties and activities. We rush to parties, to stores. We worry. We run. We lick envelopes. Too often, the Christmas spirit begins to evaporate precisely when it ought to take even firmer root.
For all the prattling about the Real Meaning of Christmas, everything boils down to two overwhelming questions: Do you believe God (a) exists and (b) came to Earth?
It's easy enough to say no. Jesus didn't loom large in contemporary historical accounts. He grew up poor and never ran anything of any size. He left behind no wife, no children. He didn't write anything. He just walked dusty roads, preaching and performing miracles -- and he died an ignominious death beside a couple of thieves.
But if you say no to Christmas, then what? Each of us feels the same tug a child feels when hearing the Christmas story. We know that somewhere out there lurks something powerful and large and good. The Scrooges around us may try to drive this conviction away, dismiss it as superstition or idiocy, but even though we don't see it -- we know it's there.
Listen to the choirs. Consider the unexplained joy you feel merely contemplating the purchase of a gift for another. Think for a moment about the majesty of any created thing. Whatever pains and hardships and travails the world presents to us, none is strong enough to drive out the secret suspicion that the kids are wrong, after all. The Christmas spirit doesn't depend on something magical and impossible. It depends on something necessary and true.
The message of Christmas is this: Have faith.
This may not resonate with the Secular Scrooges in our midst, and it may sound strange in an age when men like to think of themselves as the architects of their own salvations and the authors of meaning in their lives. But humans cannot support those burdens for long, and the invitation to faith offers unique comfort.
Far away, long ago, in a dusty poor town, a small child let out a cry. Angels ringed the hillsides and sang. Shepherds walked cautiously to a manger.
More than two millennia later, billions celebrate the day with happiness and longing because it brought something more dazzling than anything Santa ever laid beneath a tree -- the assurance that we do not live in vain and that a simple gift of love can change the world.
Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/tonysnow/2005/12/23/180126.html
A Christmas message from Tony Snow
Thank you Mr. Snow.
Very nice. I like that ceremony with the candles.
Nice article. Thanks for taking the time to post it for us.
Good morning, save. I just finished wrestling with a 35 foot long pine rope. (No tree for the cats to attack this year.) My house and my hands smell wonderful. I love Christmas.
Beautiful!
Go to Easter Vigil at any Catholic Church & you'll see it. People pick up an unlit candle as they enter the darkened church, then the priest processes in with the big candle, lit in the doorway, and passes the flame along each pew. He chants "Christ our Light" (or "Lumen Christi" if you're lucky enough to be in a church that still uses some Latin) and the people respond "Thanks be to God" (or "Deo gratias").
LOL. My 4 year old granddaughter was very concerned about my not having a tree this year because of the cats. She said that we should put it up and then, if they attacked it, we could just take the tree back.
Our cats just drink the water - they've never done anything with/to the tree itself. I don't tempt them by leaving wires dangling or putting ornaments too low. They grew up in a Jewish household and had never seen one before we got them at age 5, but that can't really have anything to do with it, can it?
Oh yes, by the way - great article, thanks for posting it.
Elsewhere on FR, I read that if you spray your tree with powder-scent underarm deodorant, the cats will leave it alone. The poster said that it worked, really!
Thanks for the beautiful story, Tony, and thanks for posting it, SL.
The most amazing thing happened on the train I rode to work this morning. The operator announced that the trains would run on a holiday schedule on Monday. Then he said, "At this time, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas." No happy holiday, no seasons greetings, just a simple Merry Christmas. I just had to go to the front of the train and wish him a Merry Christmas in return.
Merry Christmas to all of you and have a Blessed New Year.
:-) I am sure he would say that you are welcome.
I thought that was very nice too
:-) You're welcome, kassie!
Oh my gosh! 35 feet? What a wonderful Christmas decoration! (And cat friendly :-)
I love Christmas too. I am taking my folks to a party where we will sing Christmas carols and take the vast quantities of cinnamon rolls and apple pies (strudels were changed to pies as pies are easier to transport).
If I don't speak with you sooner, Merry Christmas to you and your girls and all of your family!
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