The Simple Gifts of CHristmas

I have managed to keep my Trump Derangement Syndrome under control recently by singing Christmas carols with audiences at the Christmas shows I’ve done, shows that are open to the general public, not only the deranged, and when they sing, a cappella, Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head. The stars in the sky looked down where He lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay, everything else disappears except the wonderment at how good a couple thousand people sound while singing a carol they’ve known since childhood.

A great many famous artists have tortured that carol, trying to make it a vehicle for their particular virtuosity and view of life, but when I hum a note and sing the words “Away in a” and am silent, the American people pick it up and make it the exquisite tender harmonious lullaby it is and they will also do The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying He makes. I’ve heard this in dozens of cities and it’s always the same ethereal sound. Dim light helps, pitch-blackness even better. Maybe it’s somewhat stronger in the South and Midwest or in small towns. A Utah crowd with a strong Mormon element, the beauty will bring you to tears. In New York, the audience hesitates, they need to put their fine sense of irony away, but eventually they go along with it.

The same is true of “Silent Night” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and maybe “Lo, how a rose e’er blooming” — something exquisite is created mystically out of anonymity that captures the beauty of the season. I am a Christian but I know the beauty is not due to religious conviction. Atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, nudists, octogenarian Unitarians, can sing it just as tenderly and sweetly. It is a work of art that comes out of a roomful of ordinary strangers in dim light.

Christmas is a gift to America, a festival of kindness, and I sense this on the streets of New York and in the subway, I feel it in airports, the TSA agents take on a gentler tone, people are keenly aware of the elderly, the halt and lame, small children, the lost and confused, and if this strikes you as naïve, I apologize but it’s how this old man sees things. Dark headlines leap out at us and we recoil but we cannot despair; it’s an expensive luxury that puts us at odds with the world.

I think back to 1985, a Christmas in Copenhagen among Danes around a tree hung with candles, singing their childhood songs, and I, the lone American, in their midst, and thanks to the look of comprehension on my face, a look I developed in grad school during seminars on books I hadn’t read, the Danes assumed I understood Danish and I enjoyed being free of social interaction, I just nodded and made sounds of assent, and drank the schnapps.

I remember the year I got the bright idea to fly to Tromsø in the Norwegian Arctic to see the aurora borealis, and Jenny and I and others spent five days when the sun rose around 11 and set around 1:30 and the nights were long and very cloudy and auroraless, the people were silent and embittered, the food was disgusting, and I stayed in bed with the flu.

I think back to 1997 when Jenny and I spent Christmas Eve sitting together in a candlelit New York apartment, treeless, ornamentless, ungifted, awaiting the imminent birth of our daughter. The monumental fact of parenthood filled the room. Words were not sufficient so we didn’t say much.

The Tronsø Christmas was a great investment. Every year as the day approaches, I think, “Thank you, Lord, that we’re not in Norway,” and life is beautiful, no matter what. It’s the Christmas that keeps giving.

I am a contented man. No gifts for me, please, and thank you very much. A piece of toasted sourdough with orange marmalade would be almost too much. A cup of black coffee is just fine. When you’ve heard a string of audiences in dim light sing about the manger and the silent night, your heart is full. The Lord is merciful. He is kind and patient and His love never fails.