A Christmas Story

Here is a Christmas tale that you might find hard to believe, reading about it in 2004. It is about Christmas time in the early 1950s, at the William B. Hanna public elementary school in Philadelphia.

Every year when December came around, we sang Christmas carols in our twice-weekly assemblies. We sang “Joy to the World,” and “Silent Night,” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” and the other carols that were well known to every girl and boy, as well as to their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

But that’s not the part that’s hard to believe. Everyone knows that American children used to sing Christmas carols. Here’s the fantastic part of the tale: My mother, an atheist from a Lutheran background, and my father, an atheist from a Jewish background, never raised any objection to our singing these carols that celebrated the birth of Jesus. And as far as I know, neither did any of the Jewish teachers at that school, of whom there were several.

In fact, we sometimes sang those carols at home, with my mother playing them on the piano.

There’s more: The bible was read at those school assemblies all year long, usually a psalm. My parents did not object, though I believe my mother asked the teachers not to have me read. And more: We sang hymns. I remember the wonderful voice of the man who taught fifth grade booming out the Lord’s Prayer. I remember singing “Holy, holy, holy…blessed trinity.”

I asked my mother what Blessed Trinity meant. She told me it meant Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That’s what Christians believe in, she said. She didn’t believe it because she didn’t believe in God at all. But she didn’t mind my knowing about what Christians believed, or singing their songs. Since most people were Christian, it would be kind of odd not to know anything about them, like living among a tribe of Indians and never wondering what their rain dances meant.

Those real carols were written by people who loved Christmas, who loved Jesus and the story of his birth. They were talented composers and talented writers and they put their feelings and their gifts into the songs, and that’s why the songs were still loved and sung decades or even centuries later.

They were sung by the mostly black students at my elementary school, even though every one of the songwriters was white. They were sung by the few Jews whose families had remained in the neighborhood. And they were sung by my sister and me, the children of Atheist communists. They were part of our common heritage.

My parents were communists before being left-wing meant that you had to be offended at everything. They appreciated good music and art and literature, and therefore did not hate the culture that had produced them, which was a Christian culture.

We’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we? Now there is a class of the offended and threatened who have shut down public expressions of Christmas. This has produced a divided culture, where non-Christians think – or profess to think – that Christians are some strange cult devoted to imposing their religion on others. They are easily made to believe this because knowledge about Christianity – one of the main wellsprings of western civilization – is confined to those who seek it privately, in their churches.

Now schoolchildren don’t learn to sing anything much, I don’t think. They are too busy with other things to have assemblies devoted to singing, the way we did decades ago. If they sing at Christmas, they sing things like “Frosty the Snowman.” And “Winter Wonderland.” And they might learn songs of Hannukah, or Kwanzaa, or maybe Native American chants. But nothing remotely connected with Christmas, or somebody will object.

They will probably hear Christmas carols around them, played in public in some places – though fewer and fewer public places as people fear objections and even lawsuits from the offended ones. But the carols will not become a part of them the way songs do that you sing over and over. They will grow up with advertising jingles their common musical culture from childhood, and little connection to the long, beautiful tradition of Christmas music.

But there was another reason for not objecting to the Christmas carols, and for singing them at home. They were wonderful music, and we liked music in our family. We never sang “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer” or “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” at home because we considered them inferior songs. They were fun to sing sometimes, but they couldn’t compare with the poetry and melodiousness of the real Christmas carols …
Those real carols were written by people who loved Christmas, who loved Jesus and the story of his birth. They were talented composers and talented writers and they put their feelings and their gifts into the songs, and that’s why the songs were still loved and sung decades or even centuries later …
They were sung by the mostly black students at my elementary school, even though every one of the songwriters was white. They were sung by the few Jews whose families had remained in the neighborhood. And they were sung by my sister and me, the children of Atheist communists. They were part of our common heritage …

Now school children … are too busy with other things to have assemblies devoted to singing, the way we did decades ago … They will grow up with advertising jingles their common musical culture from childhood, and little connection to the long, beautiful tradition of Christmas music.

Thanks for the ping, Steve, and for posting this wonderful essay, John.

I read this essay aloud to my husband, who responded, ‘Amen!’

Rick grew up in a Jewish home, and attended a high school (graduating in ’63) whose students were predominantly Jewish. His high school assemblies always opened with a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13, an outline offered by Christ as to how we should pray) and real Christmas carols (Silent Night, Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing … as opposed to Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer … ) were sung in music class during the Christmas season. No one – student, parent, teacher, or administrator – ever objected. And all participated – even those who were not Christians. And the sharing in the joy of the season, and participating in its music, were an accepted part of school activities, for all of the reasons cited in this excellent essay.

But those were the (for the most part) tolerant, united, patriotic 50s and early 60s (the Leave it to Beaver era that leftists love to claim never existed, or choose to deride as simplistic and unenlightened). These are the intolerant (posing as tolerant), divisive, me-oriented 00s (the Desperate Housewives era that leftists choose to portray as more honest and progressive). So we must dissect every tradition and find some sort of malevolent purpose at its origin – especially if the tradition has its roots in Christian belief.

An aside ‘Christmas story’ …

For our choir Christmas anthem this year, I selected a difficult (both vocally and instrumentally) anthem which combined Bach’s C Major Prelude and the traditional Austrian carol, ‘Still, Still, Still’. So as not to overwhelm the choir by introducing it to them a month or so before Christmas (as I would normally do), I had them begin working on it all the way back in August – just a few minutes out of each practice each Sunday morning – so as to ‘wade into’ (just a few measures each week) a difficult and demanding piece of music. By early December, both the choir and our pianist were feeling fairly confident with their knowledge of the music, and it looked as though it was all going to come together well by Christmas.

Then in mid-December I attended a Christmas concert in which one of my piano students was performing. I happened to notice that one of the young flute players in the orchestra seemed to be exceptionally good, so I approached her after the concert and asked her if she had ever accompanied a choir. She told me that she had not, but seemed to be receptive to the idea.

Long story short … our Bach Christmas piece has an optional flute accompaniment – very difficult in itself, but made even moreso by the need to synchronize with both the piano accompaniment and the four-part choral music as well (all of which are following different melodies/harmonies/rhythms throughout).

This young twelve-year-old (I’ll call her Sarah) agreed to take a look at the piece, and then to meet with me and our choir pianist at church on Christmas Eve afternoon to see whether this could be pulled together as a choral/piano/flute piece at the last minute. The three of us spent about two hours together Friday afternoon, and were feeling pretty confident that this could be done, but the test would be to see whether she could pull it off with only an hours practice this morning at 8:00 with the choir, preceding our performance at the service at 10:00.

The practice went very well, the choir was absolutely thrilled (vast understatement) with the addition of the beautiful flute accompaniment, and it added an incredibly delicate, ethereal dimension to the anthem.

After our practice, during the Sunday school hour (in which Sarah was supposed to attend the teenage class this morning), I was doing some work down in my choir office in the church basement, when she knocked on the door and came in. It was immediately obvious that she was experiencing a major case of cold feet – pretty close to a full-fledged panic attack. She told me that she didn’t believe she could go through with the performance ‘in front of the whole church’ – and that her ‘heart was racing’ and she was ‘more nervous than she had ever been’.

We sat there in my office and talked for a while, and I told her about my first time playing without a school orchestra backing me up (sharing some embarrassing youthful moments), and assuring her that if she still felt this way – even right before the performance – she could simply walk out of the choir loft when I stood up to direct, and there would be no embarrassment in doing that. I also assured her that her flute added a beautiful dimension to the piece, but that the choir would do just fine with piano accompaniment alone if she were not able to perform. She said that she would be willing to try, seeming to be calmed in the knowledge that the last-minute option to back out was available.

Then we moved our chairs so that we were sitting face-to-face, took each others’ hands, and prayed together, asking that the Lord would provide His peace and His strength so that she might use her gift to His glory this morning. But, if she did not feel confident enough to do so, that she be comfortable with her decision to walk away, with the knowledge that there will be other opportunities at other times.

She sat next to me in the choir loft during the service this morning, knowing that we were to perform right after the pastor offered a prayer. As he was praying, I noticed that her hands began shaking slightly, so I reached over and took one of them in mine, and we held hands, firmly, until the pastor ended his prayer.

With his ‘amen’, I stood and walked to my place in front of the choir, interested to see whether Sarah would take her place behind her music stand next to me or quietly walk out the side door. She didn’t leave. Flute in hand, she walked up to her music stand. This morning, her first time accompanying a choir, and playing a difficult arrangement of a Bach Prelude, Sarah played flawlessly. When I left church this morning, several people were still congratulating her on a job well done.

I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have felt inadequate for a task at hand. But … invariably … when I seek out some quiet time, take my cares and concerns to Him, and look to Him for the peace of mind, strength and direction necessary, He never fails. He didn’t fail Sarah this morning. And this morning a beautiful piece by one of the great masters was made even more beautiful by Sarah’s willingness to use her gift to His glory.

~ joanie

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