Believe

“Let us bring Him Gold, Frankincense, and Mirth…” –the child singing carols behind me last night

Merry Christmas Dear Ones! 

It’s Christmas Eve…I am heading off to Mass enmasse with my extended family of sisters, parents, children, nieces, nephews…I am the one scurrying to the hastily departing third car in shoes that don’t fit because they are borrowed, with hair that looks like I groomed it by sticking one of my fingers into the nearest electric light socket.  I have a hole in my tights that I have “fixed” by wearing that side of the tights like a candycane, twisting around my leg until the hole winds up hidden in the borrowed shoe, with all the excess fabric stuffed into the toe.  I cannot take my coat off, no matter how hot the church gets because I have a giant hole in the back of my dress that I created by yanking too hard on the zipper.  I am not a good advertisement for my trade.  My clothing is malfunctioning all over the place.  Not to mention, I am covered in dog-hair.

We get there an hour early to hear the children’s choir, dressed as molting angels, with lopsided wings made of spray-paint, cardboard, and patchy feathers singing joyously out of key.  A sheep wanders in, dressed in dried glue and cotton balls and has to be redirected to the nativity scene.  He is not where he is supposed to be. The shepherds, with dishcloths tied on their heads, beckon him vehemently.  All around us is the larger pageantry of restless toddlers, fractious babies, red and green clothing, and parents who are mentally calculating how much Dimetapp they can administer  to their young Believers when they get home and still be legal.  A girl sitting next to me who has never been to church before stares with wide eyes and asks me if it is always like this.  She is both enchanted and confused.   WHAT is this about?  She marvels at the throngs of people standing, the wheelchairs along one side of the aisle, all the people shuffling with hymnals and handbags.  “Does everyone here Believe all this?” She wants to know.  What does it mean to Believe?

For Christians, today BEGINS twelve days of merriment, Yule Rule, partridges in pear trees and whatnot.  Do you hear me, Christians?  Christmas BEGINS today.  I don’t want to see Christmas trees on the sidewalk by tea time. It’s not over. It’s just beginning!

For my beloved Jewish friends, Hanukkah began Sunday December 22nd and Ends Monday, December 30th.  Thanks to the traditions of these two mono-theistic spiritual descendents of Abraham, a lot of homes are getting filled this week with families, food, Light, and yes, presents—though that’s probably where the similarities  around these two holidays end.   Have you read the book of Macabees?  It’s no Christmas story. (To say the least!)  What the Jews commemorate during Hanukkah, as far as I can tell, is the right to Believe and to worship their god as they see fit.  They overthrew their oppressors and rededicated their holy temple with the miracle of oil that managed to burn for eight nights instead of the predicted one.  Their story is about believing in the right to Believe.  Like Christmas, it centers around a Miracle, around wonder, light, and Awe.

The Christian story is also a story of repression, beginning with Roman occupation and the census requirements of an Emperor who needed to know how many subjects he was oppressing.  Central to the plot is the significantly poor planning on the part of the baby’s parents, who had not thought ahead to book an air B&B.  There is also a whole cast of supporting roles from Shepherds, Angels, and my favorite, the sheep.   I absolutely Love how often sheep are mentioned in the Nativity story.   I love that the Christ child was announced first to the shepherds and born in a barn.  I have my theories about how shepherds are generally the most observant, empathic, and receptive people because sheep are incredibly hard stock to “read.” Being prey animals, they don’t show they are injured or sick until they are about to die, so as not to attract too early the attention of potential predators.  So anyone looking after sheep on a regular basis has to have a keen eye.  They know what’s what.  Miracles, like injuries, can be subtly catastrophic things. That the story begins with “shepherds watching their flocks by night” is no accident at all.   Bless those committed shepherds!

Fast forward two thousand years and a Macy’s Parade or two and I have no idea how a jolly, philanthropic, fat man in a red suit got involved in all of this.  He wasn’t a citizen here in the 18th century—the English colonists  thought Christmas day was so inconsequential that, after the Revolution,  Congress held its first session December 25th, 1789. It was just another day.   It was the Dutch colonists in New York who brought their veneration of Saint Nick, or Sinter Klaas.   In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote “Twas the Night Before Chrstmas” for his three daughters, which he was reluctant to publish because it was such a silly and frivolous topic, and set in ink the blueprint of Father Christmas for generations to come.   By the 1840’s Santa Claus was gaining popularity and by the 1890’s the Salvation Army was dressing up homeless men in Santa Claus suits and sending them into the streets of New York to solicit donations which would pay for the free Christmas meals they provided to needy families.  He’s been gaining ground ever since.  Even people who don’t celebrate the freedom of our right to Believe, or the upward mobility of Kings born in Stables, believe in the necessity of having our economies dragged by eight tiny reindeer through the month of December.   All I can think is that people have been hungry for excuses to Believe—to believe in Goodness, in Generosity, in some sort of capitalist-driven antidote to the Darkness that nibbles at the edge of any light.

Who was the real St. Nicholas? It turns out he was an early Christian Bishop of some place near modern-day Turkey during  the Roman Empire, sometime in the 300’s, known for secret works of Good, who is now the patron saint of children, repentant thieves, and prostitutes.  He is the patron saint of prostitutes because he is said to have paid the dowries on three sisters so that they could be married honorably, and not sold into slavery or prostitution by their impoverished parents.   His legend has evolved in the intervening centuries to include all sorts of imaginative additions—snowmen, reindeer, and some rather unfortunate clothing choices which have become his signature “uniform.”   Somewhere along the way, he became master of an overseas sweatshop of tiny beings who make toys and send their representatives to sit on shelves and torment young parents for the twenty-four days preceding Christmas.  I asked a young mother what gave her the most joy last night and she said “Now that damn Elf on the Shelf can go back to the North Pole and stop spying on us!”  Apparently, if we believe we are being WATCHED we all behave better.   Wouldn’t George Orwell love that idea?  Apparently, Santa is only here to reward the GOOD children. Naughty children will be punished.  (Prudence nods approvingly.) But it sounds to me like this modern rendition is a poor copy of the original, who, like the Great Teacher before him, came to serve the sinners, not judge them.  The Good children have no need of a patron saint—especially one with such appalling fashion sense.  It’s the naughty ones, like me, (with our own fashion challenges) who have the most need of Hope.  Hope for Forgiveness, hope for Redemption, hope that I can still fit into my workout gear after I finish all these cookies…

 I heard a lot of parents saying to skeptical middle-schoolers last night “If you Believe, you Receive. Santa doesn’t come if you don’t believe.”  So what does it mean to Believe?  Where do Believing and Pretending intersect? When we are young, we Believe so easily.  We just do. We must.  As life teaches us a thing or two, we reject those beliefs—sometimes appropriately so, sometimes not. Sometimes people lump God and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus all into the same bad acting Company and they say “only the silly, young, or naïve buy into that nonsense.”  It’s simply not for the Educated, Experienced, or Sophisticated to Believe.

In the end they are all just names for the Spirit of Selfless Giving, the Spirit of Love—though in Santa’s case, Clothing definitely makes the man.   Anyone who wears the red suit can be Santa. (Apparently, slender men in drab colors don’t have the same ability to slide down chimneys.)   The Santa my children grew up with was not fond of clothing in general.  He only wore his big red suit and boots to parties in December.  The rest of the time, unbeknownst to the kiddies, this particular Santa was a nudist most of the year.   When we went to visit him at his home, we had to pull into the driveway and honk the horn a few times before ringing the doorbell so he could throw on a robe. On Sundays, grudgingly, because there would be children present, and because hot soup can cause injuries if it falls where it is not supposed to, he would shuffle into a baggy assortment of mismatched clothing and head to town to hear the fiddlers play and drink a pint of that the children called “Black Milk.” He was a regular mug-club member at the pub where their father and I played music every Sunday afternoon.   His beard and twinkling eyes were a straight out of a coca-cola campaign for Kris Kringle and my husband, upon meeting him for the first time, said “Hey Look, kids! It’s Father Christmas! This is where he comes to get away from reindeer games in the off season!” All the regulars roared with laughter but “Santa’s” nickname stuck.  The kids, both curious and cautious, did not know what to think until one year, at one of our Christmas Eve parties, much to our collective shock, there was a knock at the door.  It had begun to snow lightly and Santa, the REAL Santa, from the pub, stood there resplendent in his red velvet coat and shiny black boots.  Our surprise was genuine—the children could tell.   Our friend had told no one he was doing this and he had gone all out. His beard was extra white.  He looked like he had stepped right off of a Christmas Card on the mantle.  We were all in awe.  It was the best Joke ever. 

Only, it turned out not to be a joke.  Something Magic happened that was Real. This man who had no children of his own, who, in fact, never seemed to like them at all, was listening to them and talking to them, letting them sit on his lap for photos, telling them about his reindeer herd, accepting carrots for Rudolph.  When one asked if he was going to give them a present, he said “Aw shit…I forgot the presents…” 

“Well, Santa,” I said hastily, “one of your elves knew you were so busy this year that you might forget so he dropped off a little sack of things earlier.  This is just a little token to remember your special visit.  You can’t leave them any real presents until they are all asleep.”

“Right!” said Santa, winking at me gratefully and wiping the Guiness foam off his mustache,  as I handed him a little bag of party favors I had for each child.  I had crocheted little horse heads that slipped over candy canes so they looked like tiny toy stick horses.  Santa gave one to each child and then told them all to go to sleep early and not give their parents any hassles.   They nodded, silently, eyes wide, as they each reached out and received a bit of Real Christmas into their hands.   Then Santa said he had to get back to the North Pole and he walked out the door and disappeared into the snow. 

At their core, the stories we tell this time of year are as bad and sad as Grimm’s fairy tales but from the Darkness comes great Light.  From the grim fate of the Maccabees, the wretchedness of giving birth in a stable, and a poor monk buying the virtues of girls who would have been sold for sex, we tell the tales and light the Lights that help us reach for Goodness, for Innocence, for Light, and the Right to Believe in the midst of so much darkness.

Please, Believe, my darlings. Believe.  Believe that our Stories have power.  From our stories come our actions, from our actions come our consequences, from our consequences come our future choices, from our choices come our lives…and around the circle goes again.  At the very center of that circle is whether or not we Believe in Everlasting and Infinite Love.  Choosing to Believe is the most important choice we ever make.  None of this is worth a damn if we don’t Believe—if nothing else, in our right to Believe as we choose.

Whatever your blend of hygge, legend, and fruitcake is…  May you believe that YOU are the most precious gift you will ever receive.  You are worthy. You are Loved. You are here to share that Love.  

Wishing you all so much Love & Light, Harmony & Joy, Magic & Miracles…

Merry EVERYTHING!

Yours aye,

Nancy