The only real modern Christmas classic (besides “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”, of course) is Charles Schultz’s “Charlie Brown’s Christmas”.
Lucy wants to be the Christmas Queen and receive lots of presents, Snoopy wants to win “money, money, money” by having the best decorated dog-house and Sally has a list for Santa which, if he can’t fill it, he can just send money, “preferably 10′s and 20′s”.
All of this came back to me when I started receiving the self-promotional Christmas cards, you know, the pictures of your rich relatives on who live in Buffalo lounging on the beach in Florida or those god-awful letters listing the accomplishments of everyone from the family dog to Aunt Hilda whom you haven’t seen in 20 years ago and sincerely hope you never do again.
The “corker” last year was one from the daughter of a deceased friend who described one of her daughters as “a power sophomore”. When I was down there for a wedding two years ago, the oldest daughter came up to me and instead of saying , “Hi, Gus. How are you?”, hit me with “I won a $40,000 scholarship to Rutgers.”
I always thought that this season, whether celebrated as Hannukah, Christmas or Kwanzaa, was about love, consideration and compassion for others. Someone once wrote a not-bad story to that effect entitled, “A Christmas Carol”.
It is as true and profound today as it was when it was written.
Too bad we have forgotten it.
