We Need a Little Christmas
You know that holiday music staple, taken from Jerry Herman’s Broadway musical Mame. In the show, the song comes just after Mame has lost her fortune in the great Wall Street crash of 1929. Mame decides that she, her little nephew Patrick and the two household servants need some cheering up.
For we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute,
Candles in the window,
Carols at the spinet.
A lot of us are feeling these days like we need a little cheer. When I went online to review the lyrics, I found a stanza I didn’t know was there.
For I’ve grown a little leaner,
Grown a little colder,
Grown a little sadder,
Grown a little older
There is a leanness of soul in the aftermath of Newtown. We feel colder, sadder, older. We need a little Christmas. Candles in the windows and carols at the spinet are lovely. But the real Christmas we need is the message sung to shepherds lonely on a hillside, to a thirteen year-old mother and a soul-stricken father who were literally using a barn for a maternity ward. They definitely needed a little Christmas.
What they got was so much greater. “Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy.” Your savior is here. There is hope. In the flesh of this infant, God and humanity are reconciled. “Peace on earth, good will among men.” This is Class A, ripsnorting joy. Once that truth sinks in, you want to put candles in the window, sing carols at the spinet. I do, anyway.
But if holiday merriment is only a sentimental ritual; if Christmas cheer is mostly just booze, “Christmas” can only be an annual, nostalgic pilgrimage to childhood memories. By midnight, you just feel worse.
Yes, we need a little Christmas. The kind that comes when we know that God is with us, even and especially in our leanness, no matter how cold and sad and old we feel. Nevertheless, the angels promise, nevertheless God is with us.
Recently I was forced to look at my life thru the eyes of my 6 yr old self and I kept getting the visual of “mini me” looking at me with a very puzzled look. The only solace I can take from any of this is that these kids died as nearly perfect little people, and my faith tells me they are looking down at all the pain and sorrow and that brings them/us hope for the future on earth.