Thinking Ahead to Christmas

I went to Macy’s on 34th Street last week, my first visit to a classic old-fashioned department store in many years, and took my daughter along so she could see what it is, like taking her to see a ranch with cowboys or a printing plant with Linotype machines or dirt-track racing or Amish harvesting oats with scythes. The store was bustling, all eleven floors, and what struck me was the friendly alertness of the employees and how smartly they could direct us to what we were looking for. This was two days after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade down Fifth Avenue and many of them had likely marched in it with the giant balloons and here they were bright and eager, directing us to Men’s Dress Shirts on five and socks on four and pens on nine.

And then there was the thrill of riding on one of the store’s century-old wooden escalators — some of the very few still in use in the world.

Downtowns are fading across the country but when you take the A train to 34th and hike the underground arcade to Seventh Avenue, you’re in a river of humanity. You pass a young man playing wild passages on a violin, an open instrument case at his feet, and a man wearing a signboard covered with Bible verses and shouting that Jesus is coming soon when we will answer for our sins and it’s a perfect location for both of these entrepreneurs. It’s a good place for an elderly tourist like me to observe the styles of the young and hear interesting slices of conversation, proof that I live in a fascinating tumultuous world of people unlike myself. A relief from narcissism.  

This is the beauty of New York, this plus the architecture, the subways, the museums, the food — the opportunity to be in a crowd. Any time, day or night, somewhere in the city you find people to brush elbows with.

Church Sunday morning, however, was sparsely attended. The first Sunday of Advent but the pews were half empty, the parishioners having gone to spend Thanksgiving with distant family perhaps, and when the sermon landed, I was glad they weren’t here to hear it.

When women came into the priesthood, they brought a beautiful simple style of preaching, one person speaking to a roomful of others, but some men retain the old ornamental gothic style of dramatic intoning, a performance of righteousness, which in an echoey sanctuary comes out half unintelligible. His message was: when times are hard, don’t give up. I wanted to get up and leave.

I walked home afterward, a cold rainy day on the Upper West Side, and I missed Minnesota, which was getting snow that day. I wanted to be walking through St. Anthony Park, the Lutheran neighborhood in St. Paul, and feel the good cheer, the Christmas lights strung on the lampposts, the choir at the seminary rehearsing, “Wake O
wake with tidings thrilling, the watchmen all the air are filling, arise, Jerusalem, arise.”

The beautiful Christmases of my childhood were created by women who had lost their mother when they were small, saw a sister die of scarlet fever, went through the terrible Depression, the dust storms, endured tragedy, and yet were inspired to make this perfect day, the pine boughs, the carols sung around the piano, the gifts perfectly wrapped, the feast — my mother and her sisters did this, eight girls in a family of twelve, including the girl who died.

My dad was dubious about Christmas, the expense, the fuss, the commerce, the pop music, which seemed to him a profanation of the sacred, but he yielded to my mother’s passion to create one perfect day for her children despite the grief and hardship all around.

And now this old man readies himself to set off on the road performing eight Christmas shows with a cast of eight, two hours of songs, sketches, a story, and we’ll dim the lights and light a candle and hum a note and the crowd will sing “Silent Night” and I want it to be perfect, as my mother made it for us — in a country torn apart by ranting and disenchantment, where all is not calm or bright, nonetheless our culture gives us this one day we can make a work of art, and when you hear a crowd of strangers, not so different from the mob in Macy’s, sing “Round yon Virgin Mother and Child, Holy Infant so tender and mild,” something beautiful is made.

Garrison Keillor © 12.01.25