Have yourself a merry, little Christmas, says the song.
What’s “little”doing there? Who wants a “little” Christmas?
No child wants a little Christmas.
Over-stressed parents might want a littler Christmas than usual -- after watching fifteen ads for the coveted, expensive, Christmas toy of the year – but even they, surely, don’t want a little Christmas.
When you think of little Christmases, you might think of the Cratchit family celebration from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Cratchit, Ebenezer Scrooge’s clerk, scrapes out a family Christmas on the skimpiest of wages.
Though the Cratchits’ Christmas goose is minuscule, the excitement over a simple, Christmas dinner in Dickens’ tale was massive enough to revive flagging Christmas traditions throughout England during Dickens’ time.
The Crachit Christmas was meager but it wasn’t small.
Dickens knew what a big Christmas was, despite his father’s stint in debtor’s prison, his mother’s failed girls school, and his own flirtation with poverty.
In A Christmas Carol, he describes in savory detail the street market, brim full of Christmas offerings: fruit, nuts, fish, coffees, teas, sweets and merry people -- as the excitement of Christmas ripples through the city. To read it makes your mouth water, and you can’t help but desire a big Christmas yourself.
I love visiting a hometown grocer at Christmas time. I might not find any Norfolk biffins, but displayed near the door are mounds of navel oranges; pastries arrayed to ensnare errand-sent husbands; frosted, sprinkled cookies. I see carts overflowing with cocoa mix, holly nog, clementines and julekage. Twinkle-eyed bag boys banter with smiling, check-stand girls. Stocking-capped, rosy-cheeked kids – free from school – hang on to sides of rapidly rolling carts. Bell-ringers heartily wish patrons a merry Christmas.
Americans strive for big Christmas, but sometimes that quest takes odd turns. Giant inflatable snowmen and penguins reflect our desire for the big. Soon, it won’t be enough to have one or two inflatables bobbing near the front door. The inflatables will grow larger and more numerous – as we look for the large in Christmas -- until our houses, whole avenues maybe, are smothered in inflatables. We won’t be able to pull out of driveways without being bounced back into our garages.
But while we’re overstuffed, we’re also small. Right in the middle of our Christmas planning comes bad news. A friend receives a catastrophic diagnosis. A sister divorces. A grandma dies, a neighbor has an accident, a loved one is caught in the legal system and can’t get out. A friend loses his job.
We shrivel.
Grief, pain, trouble. Christmas accentuates it all, shrinking hopes for “merry” into the smallest of “little” wishes. Just like in the song, we just “muddle through somehow” come mid-December.
Without Christmas, though, we’d still have the grief, pain and trouble, but what would we have for comfort and joy? Ten below temps? Sleet and ice? Shortest day of the year? Car trouble and furnace breakdown?
Without Christmas, midwinter is just plain bleak. Earth stands “hard as iron,” water “like a stone.”
Little Christmases are full of stoic muddlers. Big Christmases are full of visions for the future.
Whether your Merry Little Christmas version is the Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra or James Taylor variation, big Christmas seekers know that on that very big Christmas yet to come, there is a chance “we all will be together.”
That hope alone makes it possible to do more than just “muddle through” winter and all the pain of its discontent. It means that some of those “golden days” aren’t just “of yore.”
What’s “little”doing there? Who wants a “little” Christmas?
No child wants a little Christmas.
Over-stressed parents might want a littler Christmas than usual -- after watching fifteen ads for the coveted, expensive, Christmas toy of the year – but even they, surely, don’t want a little Christmas.
When you think of little Christmases, you might think of the Cratchit family celebration from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Cratchit, Ebenezer Scrooge’s clerk, scrapes out a family Christmas on the skimpiest of wages.
Though the Cratchits’ Christmas goose is minuscule, the excitement over a simple, Christmas dinner in Dickens’ tale was massive enough to revive flagging Christmas traditions throughout England during Dickens’ time.
The Crachit Christmas was meager but it wasn’t small.
Dickens knew what a big Christmas was, despite his father’s stint in debtor’s prison, his mother’s failed girls school, and his own flirtation with poverty.
In A Christmas Carol, he describes in savory detail the street market, brim full of Christmas offerings: fruit, nuts, fish, coffees, teas, sweets and merry people -- as the excitement of Christmas ripples through the city. To read it makes your mouth water, and you can’t help but desire a big Christmas yourself.
I love visiting a hometown grocer at Christmas time. I might not find any Norfolk biffins, but displayed near the door are mounds of navel oranges; pastries arrayed to ensnare errand-sent husbands; frosted, sprinkled cookies. I see carts overflowing with cocoa mix, holly nog, clementines and julekage. Twinkle-eyed bag boys banter with smiling, check-stand girls. Stocking-capped, rosy-cheeked kids – free from school – hang on to sides of rapidly rolling carts. Bell-ringers heartily wish patrons a merry Christmas.
Americans strive for big Christmas, but sometimes that quest takes odd turns. Giant inflatable snowmen and penguins reflect our desire for the big. Soon, it won’t be enough to have one or two inflatables bobbing near the front door. The inflatables will grow larger and more numerous – as we look for the large in Christmas -- until our houses, whole avenues maybe, are smothered in inflatables. We won’t be able to pull out of driveways without being bounced back into our garages.
But while we’re overstuffed, we’re also small. Right in the middle of our Christmas planning comes bad news. A friend receives a catastrophic diagnosis. A sister divorces. A grandma dies, a neighbor has an accident, a loved one is caught in the legal system and can’t get out. A friend loses his job.
We shrivel.
Grief, pain, trouble. Christmas accentuates it all, shrinking hopes for “merry” into the smallest of “little” wishes. Just like in the song, we just “muddle through somehow” come mid-December.
Without Christmas, though, we’d still have the grief, pain and trouble, but what would we have for comfort and joy? Ten below temps? Sleet and ice? Shortest day of the year? Car trouble and furnace breakdown?
Without Christmas, midwinter is just plain bleak. Earth stands “hard as iron,” water “like a stone.”
Little Christmases are full of stoic muddlers. Big Christmases are full of visions for the future.
Whether your Merry Little Christmas version is the Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra or James Taylor variation, big Christmas seekers know that on that very big Christmas yet to come, there is a chance “we all will be together.”
That hope alone makes it possible to do more than just “muddle through” winter and all the pain of its discontent. It means that some of those “golden days” aren’t just “of yore.”
Donna Marmorstein December 2007 All rights reserved
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