Category: Christmas

 Another Wartime Christmas 2022

Adele Fasick1 Comment

In 1917, Joyce Kilmer, one of the most popular American poets of the early twentieth century wrote this poem, which became one of the best-known poems of the period.

Joyce Kilmer

Wartime Christmas

Led by a star, a golden star,
The youngest star, an olden star,
Here the kings and the shepherds are,
Akneeling on the ground.
What did they come to the inn to see?
God in the Highest, and this is He,
A baby asleep on His mother’s knee
And with her kisses crowned.

Now is the earth a dreary place,
A troubled place, a weary place.
Peace has hidden her lovely face
And turned in tears away.
Yet the sun, through the war-cloud, sees
Babies asleep on their mother’s knees.
While there are love and home and these,
There shall be Christmas Day.

Kilmer’s poem became popular during the years when the United States and most of Europe were entangled in the first World War. The poem pointed toward future peaceful Christmas celebrations. But Kilmer himself never saw another peaceful holiday. He was killed on a battlefield in France on July 30, 1918.

Now, more than 100 years after this poem was written, we are facing another wartime holiday season. A new war in Europe has pitted Russia and Ukraine against one another and has threatened the lives of thousands of civilians as well as soldiers. Almost all the countries of Europe have been drawn into the conflict in one way or another and the struggle ahead looks as though will be a long one.

In the United States, the country has entered a permanent state of war. Teenagers carrying weapons designed for war staged more than 600 mass shooting events during 2022. The children of Uvalde will never see another holiday season, neither will the grocery shoppers in Buffalo who were gunned down, nor the visitors to an LGBTQ club in Colorado. There will be very little holiday cheer among their families and friends during the year ahead or in years to come.  

How long can these undeclared wars continue? Just as long as people allow them to go on. As we start a new year, perhaps all of us should demand that our leaders take steps to ban the unprecedented slaughter of innocent people. The greatest gift 2023 could bring us would be a Peacetime Christmas. 

Who Wants an Old-Fashioned American Christmas?

Adele Fasick3 Comments

A month ago President Trump wished all Americans a Merry Christmas and announced once again that he had won the “war on Christmas”.  I’m not sure he realizes quite how long the battles over the importance of Christmas have been going on in the U.S.

Reading about history is one of my favorite hobbies and the holidays are a fascinating subject. Those of you who have read my first Margaret Fuller mystery story, A Death in Utopia, know it is set in Brook Farm, a Utopian community that flourished in Massachusetts during the 1840s, so I’ve done a lot of reading about Brook Farm.

I’ve never forgotten the memoir I read about an American boy who grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley, not very far from Massachusetts, which had been settled by Dutch generations earlier. His name was John Van der Zee Sears and he was sent to Brook Farm for his education. The greatest shock of his new school was to discover that the Christmas holiday “did not exist” for them. In the Hudson Valley it was the greatest holiday of the year. Young John and his sister could find no one at Brook Farm who realized what they were missing except for an Irish resident, John Cheever, who was a Catholic and therefore understood the importance of the holiday for people outside of New England.

The celebration of Christmas was a divisive issue for many people in early America. It was celebrated in the South, but not often in New England. During the 1850s and later, when more and more immigrants began arriving from Europe, they brought customs from the old country, which upset many of the traditions of each of these groups. Christmas trees began to appear in American homes and were soon adopted by families from many different backgrounds.

“A Visit from Saint Nicholas” by Clement Clark Moore (although his authorship has been disputed) made an indelible impression with its picture of Santa Claus coming down the chimney to leave presents under the tree for all good girls and boys. Its popularity was one of the most unifying aspects of the Christmas holiday. As years went by and Christmas became more important as a gift-giving holiday than as a religious one, it was shared by people of all backgrounds and faiths.

Whether for Kwanza, Hanukah, or Christmas almost everyone now can unite in wanting to give and receive gifts during this holiday season. In fact, perhaps we ought to admit that what has saved Christmas for most Americans has been Santa Claus and the commercialism he represents.  

Whatever the reason for the celebration, I hope everyone is enjoying a happy holiday season and looking forward to a good new year. Happy 2019!