Thursday, December 23, 2021

Holly Jolly

 From The Imaginative Conservative:

The holiday also so ably serves as a fixed moment in time, thus transcending the normal bounds of time and space. “The wondrous and mysterious thing about Christmas is that for one day a year, we live in the past as well as in the present,” Mr. Voger explains. “We break out the same decorations, many that go back decades. We observe the same traditions. We’re always saying things like, ‘Remember that Christmas back in ’78? Or whenever. But each year, we add a few new decorations, traditions and memories—which, of course, are revisited in ensuing Christmases.” Mr. Voger is especially effective in remembering and describing the timelessness of Christmas Eve as well, a night which teaches all children “the ultimate in delayed gratification.” Anticipation of the gifts, he argues rather beautifully, is not about what one gets, but potentially what one can become. The desire for a bb-gun, after all, is not about owning a bb-gun. Rather it’s about becoming an armed warrior-hero-vigilante.

Additionally, Mr. Voger wonderfully captures his own Christmas shopping as “from a young age, we children were encouraged to save our pennies, nickels, and dimes all year to buy Christmas presents for one another.” His favorite place to shop, the Berlin, New Jersey, Farmer’s Market. “There was no place on Earth like the Mart at Christmastime. Small gestures like strings of colored lights and Old Christmas songs playing through tinny speakers transformed the drab milieu into something magical. The Mart’s sometimes forlorn denizens moved with a bit more purpose, and even some joviality. At the lamp shop, the animated ‘bleeding Jesus’ framed art (remember those?) took on extra significance.” (Read more.)


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