Holiday Thoughts and Wishes

We have a yearly joke at our house that it would be fun to invite people to a “real old-fashioned” New England Christmas. Guests would be seated in an unheated room on hard wooden benches and have to listen to someone read that fierce Puritan sermon, Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Give me that old time religion, or rather, don’t. Ah, the good old days.

A Puritan Christmas wasn’t the season to be jolly. Partly this was a reaction to the Christmas season in the old country, which often turned into something rowdy and raucous. The only time our Puritan ancestors held religious services on Christmas was if the day actually fell on a Sunday. Other than that, it was off to work we go, just like any other day. It certainly wasn’t anything special.

Things were slow to change; it was the middle of the 19th century before Christmas was even declared a holiday in Massachusetts. Many people tend to think of an old-fashioned New England Christmas as something from a Norman Rockwell illustration, but they are recalling memories from the 20th century, not the really, really old days. The particular decade from the 1900’s that inspires nostalgia depends on when you grew up.

Speaking of looking back, this past Thanksgiving, I thought once again that it would be fascinating to know what the first Thanksgiving was actually like. One thing is clear to me; the small band of women and girls who survived that first terrible winter in 1620-21 would have had a back-breaking amount of cooking to do for that many people. No one had a term like post-traumatic stress syndrome back then but surely they all must have experienced the condition.

First they had a truly terrifying trip into the unknown under horrendous conditions at sea. Then they landed somewhere in the wilderness in the winter, with food sources getting low, and had to build a town from scratch, while all around them people were getting sick and dying. Not sure I’d feel like celebrating just yet even when the harvest came in a few months later. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if I were a pilgrim in 1620, I would have just stayed in Holland.

It will be interesting to see what the folks at Plimoth Plantation have in store for their 400th anniversary in a couple of years. I’ve read that native Wampanoag will be given an active role in the commemoration, which is only right. Here at home, we send a note of appreciation to all those whose planning and hard work went into all the Rehoboth375 activities this past year. It’s good to recall where we came from.

Anymore, we need to give thanks for Thanksgiving Day itself because it’s the only thing keeping Christmas from totally overrunning November. Although I think that ship has sailed already, and I’m not talking about the Mayflower. Or perhaps it’s a jack-o-lantern that is holding off Christmas. But I noticed that while Mexico was celebrating the Day of the Dead on Nov. 1-2 (and I was watching the delightful Disney movie “Coco”), the Hallmark Channel had already started their Christmas marathon. Who needs two months of Christmas shows? And this in in addition to Christmas in July. I’m all in favor of summer in July, myself.

Christmas used to be a very special holiday. But how can something feel special when you celebrate it relentlessly for two months? It has become like a juggernaut, which Merriam Webster defines as a “massive, inexorable force that crushes whatever is in its path”. That about sums it up. The Grinch learns that Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Today we all know that Christmas comes from an Amazon warehouse, or so it appears. “But maybe Christmas – perhaps -- means a little bit more”, as Dr. Seuss tells us.

Gift-giving is an important part of the holiday spirit and it’s good to help boost the economy by buying things at the end of the year. But sometimes you just have to get out of the way of the holiday juggernaut before it runs you over. Take a break from all the holiday craziness, not to mention the terrible troubles and turmoil of the wider world. They will still be there, sadly. For now, appreciate the calm and silence of a cold frosty night, knowing that this is as dark as it will get, and enjoy all the twinkling lights, the beautiful old carols, and the heavenly peace at the center of Christmas.