"Our contemporary, semi-secular Christmas is similarly a collection of everything yearned for: warmth, plenty, peace, family, conviviality. Like Narnia, the holiday is a fantasy, but there are times when a fantasy is exactly what you need."  Laura Miller NY Times

In her editorial Laura Miller says she reads The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe every year at this time because it means Christmas to her.  She makes a good claim that our present celebration was pretty much invented in Victorian times, by Charles Dickens, Clement Moore, Washington Irving and I would add, Thomas Nast, who gave us the jolly red-suited Father Christmas.  Everything before that, that put Jesus' birth in December, the Christmas Tree, gifts, etc., etc., was handed down over centuries with only second, third, fourth hand reasonings from German, Roman and other pagan civilizations.  Why not celebrate it the way we do--who is to say that the way it has evolved is incorrect or sacrilege?

My daughter-in-law watches It's a Wonderful Life at Christmas time.  She is an admitted Christmas Fiend--the season means as much to her as my books mean to me.  She guards it's sanctity, but her sanctity is not the same as someone else's.  Hers mean that there is a live tree, that each precious ornament, collected over her 33 years and lovingly wrapped and stored, makes it's way carefully to the tree.  It means that Christmas carols are playing all day every day.  It means that her children understand that Christmas is a time of quiet adoration of the tree.  It means that her birthday (in the middle of December) not be confused with The Holiday.  It means that only 3 pieces of tape are used to wrap rectangular presents, so that unwrapping is not torture.  It means gingerbread men made with her kids and beautiful decorated sugar cookies.  It mean reading Christmas storybooks at bedtime.  She is not religious.  Christmas for her has to do with love--of the season and of her family and of the beautiful sparkling trappings of lights in the window and on the trees.

Can't it be that way for any of us?  Isn't it okay to make Christmas into what is good for you?  For me Christmas is my little tree, the beautifully familiar music, giving gifts and baking.  It is an excuse to be sentimental, to eat a little more sugar than usual, to spend money on those I love, to remember Christmases past and to put a glow on them that might not have been there originally, but who cares? Why would anyone care what Christmas means to me and how I keep it?  Why would anyone care if my Christmas is sanctified with Jesus and the Wise Men and the Virgin Mary?  Why would anyone care of I remember The True Meaning?  Everyone's Meaning is True.  If you celebrate Christmas by putting up thousands of lights on your house and making them blink in time to the Trans Siberian Orchestra that's okay with me.  If you chose to celebrate with a dinner of deep-fried turkey, that's okay with me. If you choose to celebrate by buying goats for families in Africa, more power to you. If you don't send cards and don't bake and ignore the whole thing, that's your choice.

I like the red and the green and the sparkle and the smell.  I like the hustle and the bustle and the Merry Christmas greetings from everyone, stranger or not.  Today I am loving the snow and wishing my husband's work would let him go home so that we could enjoy some hot chocolate together before nightfall.  We will build a fire and the flames will dance off the reflective ornaments on my little tree.  The fake candles on the mantle will flicker and if the lights don't go out we can watch Miracle of 34th Street again.  We can think about those we love and eat a cookie and put brandy in our tea.  And Christmas tonight can mean being cozy under a warm blanket with the one I love and the fact or fantasy that for this brief moment, all is well.