Let There Be Peace on Earth

Yesterday I was teasing my kids, I said, "So, how do you want to handle Christmas this year? Do you guys just want to come into my room and start jumping on the bed at five in the morning, going 'We wanna open presents! We wanna open presents!' like you usually do?" Some years we have opened one present on Christmas Eve, and then the rest on Christmas day; also, part of the question was, you guys are essentially grown up now, maybe we could wait till a little later in the morning this year ...

In hindsight, I think I should've said "seven o'clock" instead of five. They might not have been able to stay awake that long.

At five this morning I had two young adults literally jumping on my bed like it was a trampoline, begging to open their presents.

I overheard some kids talking yesterday, and the conversation was familiar: "Whatcha gettin'?" You were always told that it's not the receiving but the giving that should be the spirit of Christmas, but hearing this conversation I had to stop and think about that. For you and me, grown-ups, that's true, but we don't need to be told -- for us, it's fun to pick out gifts for children, their anticipation is fun for us. For the little ones, for kids, it really is the receiving that's fun, seeing what gifts Santa brings you. Nobody really expects little kids to give as much as they get, and nobody really minds if they're excited by the prospect of getting a whole lot of new stuff, any more than we really keep score of whether they've been good all year. For us the fun is in giving to them, and seeing how excited they are, and creating a happy fantasy world for them with reindeer and elves and tales of the faraway North Pole. It's a time we indulge them, just once, and it's fun for us as givers and for them as getters. At Christmas we adults can remember being little, the excitement of waiting for Santa, how hard it was to fall asleep, listening for those reindeer.

The spirit of Christmas is one of hope and innocence that anyone can be part of. I asked out loud a few years ago whether there would still be Christmas cards with the embarrassing slogan, "Peace on earth, goodwill to men," such an un-American thing to say! And you know what -- there still are. At Christmastime we look upon the innocence of a newborn baby, the innocence of childhood, the hope and possibilities of a new life, and we block out the cruelty of adults, we pretend it doesn't exist for one day, if we can. You don't have to subscribe to any particular religious dogma to wish for peace on earth or that the world could be refreshed with the innocence of a child. Traditions have been retrofitted to a Christian mythology, but Christmas is a secular holiday, anybody can be part of it. Call it something different: Yule works.

It happens that the innocence of children and peace on earth are themes of a holiday that coincides with the winter solstice, when the sun has reached its darkest point and is certainly going to gain in strength again; warmth will return to the world, if we just hold on and wait. As such, Christmas is a profound holiday, one whose significance transcends levels of understanding. It represents, among other things, the rebirth of innocence, the wish for worldwide harmony, the celebration of man's humble place in (and dependence on) nature and the cycle of the seasons.

This year, my wife is far away; her father, our children's grandfather, died yesterday. My children themselves are not children any more, but young adults. They want to hang with their friends these days, yes, sometimes more than family, we understand how that is, they are making the transition to adulthood, toward a time when they might start their own families. A death in the family -- that is painful at any time, but especially now, when families are huddling together praying for the light to come back into the world, and one candle has gone dark. A death brings the family closer together, those whose miss him the most can share their grief and console one another.

These are dark times for our country, when greed and fear have been allowed to make our decisions for us. Here at the solstice it is good to know that the darkness can only push so far, that the sun always comes back again. When we say "Peace on earth" we should pause and ask ourselves whether we really mean it, and if we do mean it, what would that look like, and how do we get there from here? This is a good time to make a plan, to start on a path. And then, each day through the new year we should follow up on it, measure our progress, refine our planning, take another step. You don't have to subscribe to any particular dogma to see peace for all as a worthwhile goal, and to figure out how to work toward it.