Why We Must Endure Christmas

copyright 2011 by Alan Scott Kaufman

Once again, it’s the aftermath of Christmas.  The beautiful decorations are quickly disappearing: the blinking lights, the trees, images of Santa and his elves are all vanishing without fanfare.  Soon, you will be flooded with credit card bills for all those presents you felt forced to buy.  You’ll take your revenge when paring down next season’s list by eliminating those who this time did not send a card or gave you too cheap a gift.  And you’ll dispense with those greetings of goodwill and peace on Earth for another year.

This seasonal depression is dramatically expressed in a DVD that I watched alone in my apartment days ago on Christmas Eve.  Titled Merry Sitcom!, it is a collection of Christmas episodes from TV comedies.  Except the bonus show I viewed was not intended to be funny.

Window on Main Street was a short lived series starring Robert Young who had just finished Father Knows Best.  In Window he plays a widower who has moved back to the town where he grew up.  He resides in a hotel writing a book with a new chapter each week telling the story of a resident’s life.  The show revealed truths that viewers did not always want to hear.  In particular the Christmas episode told us how Young’s character became a widower.  Several years before, his wife and child were killed in a car accident shortly before Christmas.

In his first Christmas Eve back in town, he attends a party at a friend’s house, but becomes too depressed thinking about his lost family.  Leaving, he heads for a Main Street store where the janitor of his hotel is playing Santa Claus.  Young arrives as the store is closing and the older gentleman, in street clothes, emerges completely despondent.  Young asks him why.

He explains that Christmas Eve is the saddest day of the year.  The children leave, the store closes, and he must go back to his hotel to spend the night and next day all alone.

As you wipe away the tears, Young’s character has an idea.  He goes back to the party taking this gent dressed again as Santa.  Santa is in heaven, and Young kisses the hostess under the mistletoe.

Okay, this is a “Hollywood Ending”.  Yet this is the secret as to why we endure Christmas.  It’s been said that life is tough and then you die.  So the only true pleasure in life is dreaming.  What a fantasy is Christmas!  For months you can dream of anything you wish.  It’s worth the price you pay when you wake up.  For those of you who take Christmas literally as the birth of Christ, you know that the Bible’s Book of Revelation tells us that peace on Earth will never be achieved by humanity itself.  Only when Christ returns can He lead us to Peace.  But since you do not know the date of Christ’s return, even you can engage in fantasy that He returns as soon as possible.

The day after this past Christmas I attended a sale where I found a delightful perpetual calendar with two elves counting the days until Christmas.  As I write this, there are 363 days left, and with 2012 being a leap year, there’s an extra day of waiting.  May you be patient as you count the days.  Together, we will endure the travails of Christmas because it is our best shot at our dreams.