Kris Kringle, Christ Child – Some Outsider Thoughts on Christmas

“And the angels came, did you hear them sing?
In the shining light of the maternity wing
Sayin’ ‘People, do not be afraid, Love is new!
In the Heart of every child Love is born to you.'”
— Kathleen Hannan, “Every Child”

It’s that awkward time of year again.  When store clerks puzzle over whether to wish me a merry Christmas as they ring up my purchases, and, after looking at my patently Jewish features, settle on “Happy holidays.”  “Same to you,” I say.  I’d have said the same if they’d said “Merry Christmas” but they don’t know that.  Probably they fear “offending” me.

Awkward.  But when they do say “Merry Christmas,” I also feel a bit awkward.  You can’t win.

The irony is that, since beginning to identify myself as a Unitarian Universalist, I do celebrate Christmas.  It’s a holiday that’s fascinated me since I was a little Jewish boy in a mostly Christian school, trying to shut my ears against the almost unearthly beauty of the carols I knew I wasn’t supposed to sing.

My current “celebration,” in case you’re wondering, consists mostly of going with my wife to a Unity church on Christmas Eve and singing those carols; letting the tears flow, some years, as I lift the lighted candle at “Silent Night.”  In worship, not of the historical Christ Child–though he certainly existed; Jesus, like the rest of us, had to have been an infant at one time–but of something pure and holy born within each one of us.  Born perpetually, but most perceptible in the sacred stillness of this night.

Volumes have been written on the true meaning of Christmas, mostly by people who are Christians by culture if not faith, for whom the holiday has been part of their awareness as far back as they’ve had awareness.  Forgive the presumption of a few observations by an outsider, written as though he were an anthropologist from Mars–which, at this season of the year, I perhaps am–taking notes on the festival.

This extraterrestrial anthropologist will note, first, that Christmas is an eight-day holiday, beginning on December 25 and ending on January 1.  (He’ll find in one popular song traces of a time when it lasted twelve days, but this is clearly a thing of the past.)  If he has any awareness of the Jewish religious calendar, he’ll note how the eight-day festival has its parallels in Judaism.  There’s Hanukkah; there’s Passover.  And like Passover, it’s the first and last days of the holiday that are full festivals, the time in between being half-holiday, half-secular.

He’ll then notice that the iconography for this eight-day festival features a linked pair, a tiny child and an old man.  At the beginning of the period, these two figures are the Christ Child and Santa Claus.  At the end, they’re the New Year and the Old Year.  He’ll suspect that, not only are the two pairs different representations of one basic idea, but the Infant and the Old Man are at bottom the same person.  If he’s told that one of the names for the Old Man is “Kris Kringle”–from German Christ Kindl, “Christ the Little Child”–he’ll nod (or whatever Martians do) and say, Yes, just as I thought.

He’ll nod again when told that the Old Man has a certain propensity for coming down chimneys–as babies do, when dropped there by storks.

He’ll say:  This is a holiday about regeneration and rebirth. About the human longing to be born anew as our aging process reaches its end, just as the sun’s light is reborn when it reaches its point of deepest darkness.

But of course there’s more.  A festival doesn’t have the power and resonance of Christmas unless it can coalesce a whole range of meanings, yearnings, and hopes–some of which may contradict each other–into a few rich symbols.

He’ll look at the Christmas tree.  And as a trained anthropologist, albeit from another planet, he’ll be reminded of what folklorists call the “Weltenbaum,” the “world-tree.”

“The Weltenbaum is found in the mythology of many peoples and is an ancient symbol of the cosmic order.  As world-axis (axis mundi), it stands in the center of the world.  Its roots reach deep into the earth and its crown touches or carries the heavens.  And so it binds together the three planes of heaven, earth, and underworld.”  So the German Wikipedia.  The English Wikipedia adds:  “It may also be strongly connected to the motif of the tree of life.”

“Its crown touches the heavens.”  Is that why there’s a star at the top of the Christmas tree? he’ll wonder.  Is that why it’s adorned with lights, as its branches wend their way upward through the splendors of the starry sky?

Our Martian will listen to the song about the Old Man as God of judgment.  (“He’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice”–as God does at the Jewish New Year.)  He’ll notice what happens to those who’ve “passed” the Old Man’s scrutiny, as they awaken from beneath their blanket of snow.  (“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas …“)

“The kids in girl and boyland
Will have a jubilee
They’re gonna build a toyland
All around the Christmas tree … “

And if he’s read the Christian Bible, he’ll think of the blessedness of those who’ve been found “nice” in the final judgment, reproduced–in the ideal fantasy, at least–in every family’s living room:

“God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain … Then he showed me … on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. … And night shall be no more …” (Book of Revelation, 21:3-4, 22:1-5).

At the heart of it all–the Old Man, miraculously turned at the end of each year into a newborn babe.  The two extremes united in the Love that’s always newborn, that has (in the words of Unitarian minister Mary Grigolia) neither beginning nor end.

“And the angels came, did you hear them sing?
In the shining light of the maternity wing
Sayin’ ‘People, do not be afraid, Love is new!
In the Heart of every child Love is born to you.'”

Lyrics from Kathleen Hannan’s “Every Child,” soon to be available on her CD “Seen & Unseen: Songs from the Light of Midlife.”  I’ve heard most of these songs–they’re wonderful.  You can preorder at http://www.kathleenhannan.com/.

Today’s post is my last for 2012.  I’ll be back on January 10, talking about my new project, the novel that’s the sequel to Journal of a UFO Investigator.

This will be part of a multi-author “blog hop” on the theme of “My Next Big Thing,” to which I was invited by Valerie Nieman, author of Blood Clay.  Read about Val’s “next big thing”–a gripping, suspenseful novel about a young girl’s coming of age and her encounter with a horrendous crime–on her blog, http://valerienieman.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-next-big-thing.html.

Wishing happy holidays and a great 2013 to all!