The magic of Christmas has been a subject of much debate among some of the best authors of the era. Far be it for anyone to malign Charles Dickens’ assertion that four ghosts and a prize-winning turkey are the key to unlocking holiday magic. Yet in the feeble form of Tiny Tim, Dickens gifts us a more profound and enduring truth: Christmas carries hope where joy fears to tread.
Christmas rekindles the surety that a better day will dawn, and soon. This is the magic of the holiday: not the lack of earthly ills, but the spark of hope it ignites to sustain us through our dark seasons of doubt and strife.
In this vein have we adopted the Grinch as a sort of Great Gatsby’s green light of Christmas: the single, most hopeful sign that Christmas miracles are closer than they appear. Each year, we give fruitcake another go despite last year’s failure. We toss a line to distant family and friends who have drifted too far from our shores. We harbor a jangle of single socks, assured their missing matches are only one wash away from reunification.
This hope is the crux of Christmas that our communities need as the disquiet of winter settles in our bones.
“Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,” wrote Maya Angelou, “streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope, and singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air. The world is encouraged to come away from rancor, come the way of friendship.”
Animosity and apprehension have increased under this presidential administration, as have economic and social upheaval. Unemployment has reached a four-year high at 4.6% while grocery prices have risen by about 30% since 2020, as reported recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Health care premiums — without help from the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies — are also projected to sharply increase next year.
According to a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation, “About 24 million people buy health insurance through the marketplace, the majority of whom used to receive tax credits to lower the monthly price. Without credits, the monthly cost could rise by 114% on average, according to health research non-profit KFF.”
Our nation has forgotten how to “cherish peace and goodwill, [and] to be plenteous in mercy,” as President Calvin Coolidge once said defined the spirit of Christmas. Instead, our current president is manufacturing an oil war abroad while ICE agents are arresting American citizens as suspected undocumented immigrants, despite proof otherwise. Any mercy being afforded by the White House is in the form of extra baloney sandwiches to traumatized detainees in detention centers while they are denied due process and timely legal counsel.
Is it any wonder this holiday season seems especially grim for millions of hard-working families, many of which are descendants of immigrants, still clinging to an American dream?
This winter, our communities must embrace not only the yuletide spirit of mercy lauded by President Coolidge, but also the spark of Christmas hope celebrated by the Grinch. Hope prompts action and opens doors. Hope creates community among strangers. Despair sees only the illness and not the cure.
Just as the winter solstice brought together our ancient communities, so too must we be willing to find one another in the darkness separating us under the president’s efforts to make America great through the suffering of humanity.
As Marley’s ghost reminds us in “A Christmas Carol,” our lives must amount to more than a business meeting for the sake of self-promotion. Our business is our community. Our industry is one another.
“Mankind was my business,” Marley rattles off angrily in his ghostly chains. “The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
We must not let the challenges of this Christmas threaten the best parts of our holiday spirit. Christmas is a celebration of something infinitely more worthy of our time than our own petty grievances, political parties, and fears. It is a spirit of hope and service that has survived the depths of world wars, pandemics and natural disasters. It has survived the Great Depression, Tricky Dick, and Desert Storm. So, too, will it survive the social and economic disasters brewing at the White House.
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