Lost: Two Decades

Okay, where did those last twenty years go?

Anyone?

Reward if you can recover them.

Greetings, All

In a small city's otherwise deserted radio station a deejay and his operator get ready to play "The Christmas Song" for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time. Across town a reporter sifts thru the wire copy, tries to ignore the mainly bad news, is pleased that Marshawn Lynch is returning to the Seahawks, and wonders if he'll still have a job next week. An emergency ward doctor moves from cubicle to white-curtained cubicle, and knows another fifty patients are being triaged in the waiting room. A nurse, in the middle of her fourth 14-hour shift, responds to another bell. A 911 operator reaches for her cold carton of coffee in between panicked calls. A highways worker studies avalanche reports. A bus driver pulls on a Santa Claus toque and grins at his rowdy late night riders. A priest adjusts her robe and prepares for her third service in twenty-four hours. A ninety-year-old in a nursing home dozes in his wheelchair and dreams of Christmases past.

Greetings, all.

Welcoming Ghosts

A widower we know said he had thought of moving away from his now too large house, but decided to stay, because it was still home to a friendly ghost.

Four ghosts appear in Dickens's "A Christmas Carol"--first the mournful Marley, dragging his chains, and then the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future.

But ghosts are not always frightening. Ghosts can be friendly, and are especially welcome at Christmas, bringing with them memories as colorful and treasured as the tree ornaments we hung decades ago.

It used to be customary--perhaps still is--for children to leave a plate of cookies for Santa's midnight arrival. We're leaving glasses of sherry for the ghosts.

Send in the Bathrobed Magi

It is, as many know, Christmas pageant time. Tiny tots from Sunday school, garbed as angels, will  open the program with "Jingle Bells" and at least one will have a meltdown.

Then the older group will present the Nativity play, with the prettiest girl as Mary, the class thug as the gentle Joseph, three pre-teen boys in bathrobes as the Wise men, and a confused dog as a camel.

At the conclusion, the entire cast and watchers will sing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Then the performers will be given bags of oranges, hard candies and possibly toxic nuts, and sent off into the snowy night.

We've all been there. Some of us on stage, in our bathrobes.

Thomas the Twin

There has always been particular interest in a few of those who traveled with Jesus--Judas, of course, and Mary of Magdala, but also Peter, the rock, and John, thought to be "the one whom Jesus loved," and Matthew, the tax collector. Often readers identify with one of these.

Then there is Thomas, whose feast day was/is December 21. Thomas is often tagged "Didymus," but this is redundant. "Didymus" is the Greek word for "twin," but"Thomas" itself is derived from the Hebrew word "teom," which also means "twin." So one of the things we know about the man called Thomas is that he was a twin, but we do not know whose twin he was.

It seems to some of us that Thomas has gotten a bad rap, being dubbed for centuries "Doubting Thomas." Thomas's doubt--that Jesus had been resurrected--seems, again to some of us, not a failing, but an indication of how deeply he loved Jesus, and his need for absolute certainty to assuage his grief and give him peace.

A few years ago, a collection of fragments was published as "The Gospel of Thomas," and there has been doubt about that; doubt, as well, that he journeyed to India as some legends have it.

But is doubt necessarily a bad thing? Not if it leads somewhere. Peter Abelard wrote "The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting." And Paul Tillich wrote "Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith."

Good Year for Stamp Collectors

One of the most interesting philatelists of the current day is Keller, the gentle hit man in a series of Lawrence Block novels. After dispatching a subject, Keller uses his ill-gotten gains to purchase rare florals from the Ivory Coast and commemoratives from St. Pierre et Miquelon.

Stamp collecting may have slipped from fashion as a hobby, despite the fame of some of its followers--George VI, Franklin D. Roosevelt, et al. And making it harder for those of us who still lovingly tend their albums is the development of the pre-gummed postage stamps.

But the design of these miniature works of art continues to thrive, and we were delighted this year to see the new portrait of Elizabeth II on a series of mauve Canadian stamps, and, as the year ends, a Leonard Cohen stamp.

This is the happiest news since the US issued a Duke Ellington 22-cent stamp in recognition of Duke's "22 Cent Stomp."

And now, a Leonard Cohen stamp! Hallelujah!

Old Scrooge, Young Dickens

There is an excellent Modern Library edition of Charles Dickens's Christmas novellas--not only "A Christmas Carol," but the less familiar "The Chimes" and "A Haunted Man." After the success of "A Christmas Carol," readers looked for a Dickens story each Christmas season, and he continued to produce them. Perhaps the best known of these later stories is "The Cricket On the Hearth."

Most of us are accustomed to seeing portraits of the author in late middle age--bearded, slightly balding, wrinkled, all the ravages of time. But the portrait on this Modern Library edition shows him as a young man, unbearded, longhaired, delicately handsome. It was painted by David Maclise in 1839, when Dickens was 27.

Four years later, Dickens published "A Christmas Carol." And this is the almost hard to believe truth: that a 31-year-old created the crabbed old miser Ebenezer Scrooge.

The introduction to the Modern Library edition is by John Irving, who writes of watching the Alastair Sim film in a tent of the Great Royal Circus in Junagadh, Gujarat in northwest India. It's a good opening for Dickens's Christmas classic.

The other surprise, perhaps, is that "A Christmas Carol" is short, just over one hundred pages. It can be read in one sitting, and probably should be.

In his own short introduction, Dickens wrote "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly."

Homage to St. Lucy

December 13--feast day of St. Lucy.

St. Lucy of Syracuse, a third century Christian martyr who is regarded as the patron saint of--among others--writers.

All of us who string words together--Jurgen Gothe once had cards identifying himself as a "word arranger"--are grateful for St. Lucy's watchfulness and intervention. Writers who labor for years on an idea, writers like Flaubert who spend days searching for le mot juste, writers who collect stacks of publishers' rejection slips, writers who may not even think of themselves as writers but continue to delight their circle of friends with wonderful letters, writers who try to find time for their own work while writing labels for stain removers and speeches for politicians, and, especially, writers whose names may now be forgotten, but whose stories have enriched our lives from the time parents read to us.

St. Lucy, bless them all.

Here We Come A-Caroling

We once were part of a civilized radio station that refused to play Christmas music before December 15. Now stations fall over each other trying to be the first to go "all Christmas." Some start the day after Hallowe'en. And then comes the avalanche of bad pop tunes and albums hammered together for seasonal sales. So far we have escaped "Christmas with Keith Richards."

One should hear Bach's Christmas Oratorio at least once this season, and there are other choice works to enjoy, including Andre Previn's recording of "The Nutcracker" with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Menotti's charming "Amahl and the Night Visitors," and Baroque Christmas concerti by Il Giardino Armonico and Les Violons du Roy. The most interesting new recording may be "Cantica Nova" by the choir of Victoria's Christ Church Cathedral, ten new carols by Canadian composers, including Stephen Chatman and Paul Halley.

And now, in response to an overwhelming absence of requests, we bring you again our recommended playlist for jollity 'round the wassail bowl:

"Sleighride," a runaway version of the Leroy Anderson number by Art Pepper and Richie Cole. Roger Kellaway steers the sled thru some scary curves and over some crazy bumps.

"England's Carol," which is really "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," as interpreted by the Modern Jazz Quartet.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Hard to top Judy Garland's wistful performance of this Hugh Martin-Ralph Blane ballad, but there is a tougher reading by Rosemary Clooney. Our choice, again this year: the Dexter Gordon version. Long tall Dexter gives the song a more upbeat treatment.

"An Appalachian Christmas." Mark O'Connor's party. James Taylor is here, along Renee Fleming and a string band, but the pick is Jane Monheit's "The Christmas Song," the hippest (apologies to Nat Cole) version of the Mel Torme-Bob Wells standard.

"Away in a Manger," George Shearing and Don Thompson give a Brahmsian depth to the children's carol. It's on the 1983 "Top Drawer," one of the Shearing-Torme live performance albums.

"Midnight Sleighride" by the Sauter-Finnegan Orchestra. Yet another romp thru the snow, with this variation on the Troika from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije" suite by the clever, eclectic ensemble led by Eddie Sauter and Bill Finnegan.

"'Zat You, Santy Claus?" Hey, it's Louis. What more do you need?

Yes, thank you--we will take one more mince tart and another mug of mulled wine.

Trump Trash Talk

Trudeau: "The next time we mock Trump we should do it in French."

Macron:  "Or use bigger words."

Wait, can I get that letter back?

There is always the danger when writing a stack of Christmas cards that you may goof up. For example, you're writing to your brother and saying, "Are we going to have to put up with wacky Uncle Fred again this year?" and then realizing you have mixed up the envelopes and sent that one to Uncle Fred.

Some years ago, there were sensors and cameras installed at high traffic locations in southern British Columbia, and these were programmed to record vehicles exceeding the speed limit. The erring driver would receive a ticket in the mail--at that time, 75 bucks--but as a bonus, a photograph of the vehicle blasting through the intersection. We were tempted to have the photo reproduced as a Christmas card, to send to friends with the message "Speeding Our Greetings to You."

We look forward to the cards sent by political leaders, and the one awaited most eagerly this year is the White House card showing Donald Trump's head photo-shopped onto Rocky Balboa's body.

A merry Christmas to all, and especially card-carrying Canada Posties.