at Christmas it always is young. . . .” The loss of childhood, however, is inevitable, and as the popular colum- nist and humorist Erma Bombeck once said: “There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”
Home for the Holidays
Another aspect of the spirit of the holiday season is the way it can bring families and friends together. In modern society, when people are sometimes separated by thousands of miles, Christmas can be that once-a- year special occasion that draws them together again.
But what does it mean to go “home” for the holidays? Author Marjorie Holmes has said, “At Christmas, all roads lead home.” Similarly, British travel writer Dame Freya Stark once observed that Christmas was “a piece of one’s home that one carries in one’s heart.” Carol Nelson has said, “Christ- mas is a time when you get home- sick—even when you’re home.” And the legendary British author Charles Dickens, who is often associated with Christmas because the holiday was the focus of one of his most famous books, A Christmas Carol, once wrote: “And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should.”
From Old Christmas O
F ALL THE OLD FESTIVALS, however, that of Christmas awak- ens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. They gradually increase in fervour and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony. —WASHINGTON IRVING
Heart and Love
Christmas spirit also means showing extra heart and love toward others during the Christmas season. Literary journalist Hamilton Wright Mabie once said that the Christmas season created “a conspiracy of love.” According to author Janice Maeditere, “Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts.” And Washington Irving, the author of such classics as “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” once called Christmas “the season for kindling the fire of hospital- ity in the hall, the flame of charity in the heart.”
Compassion Another of the greatest blessings of
the Christmas spirit is the compassion for others it can engender—the sense of warmth and community that can permeate this time of year, if we let it. Newspaper columnist George Mat- thew Adams once reflected on the compassion of the Christmas spirit, saying, “Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first.” According to Loring A. Schuler, one-time editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal: “[T]he spirit of Christmas fulfills the greatest hunger of man- kind.” For author W. T. Ellis, “It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”
u British author Charles Dickens, shown here in the late 1860s, is often associated with Christmas because of A Christmas Carol, one of his most famous books.
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E
Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth president of the United States, once reminded America that “Christmas is not a time of season but a state of
u For popular author and radio personality Garrison Keillor, the beauty of Christmas is that it is a communal event.
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mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.” In the same vein, scientist William Parks said: “Christmas is not just a day, an event to be observed and speedily forgotten. It is a spirit which should permeate every part of our lives.” Garrison Keillor, author and radio personality, had this to say about the spirit of Christmas: “A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compul- sory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” Norman Vincent Peale, the preacher and author, said quite simply: “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”
PHOTO: ©BETTMANN/CORBIS
PHOTO: WIREIMAGE
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