Blog 2605 -12.16.2022

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas

The gift giving season is upon us when the shops and online stores are doing their best to provide would be Santa’s with lots of toys and goodies to shower upon those they love. My dad used to say, “Christmas was for children.” I agree with the caveat that Christmas brings out the child in all of us. For too many, Christmas comes with lots of baggage and they feel like Jacob Marley’s ghost with ledgers filled with past due accounts chained to their necks. It is difficult to be grateful for Christmas present when we are forever focused on the ghosts of Christmas past or fearful of the ghosts of Christmas future.

We need most to remember that we are that Christmas Child of hope. It is highly unlikely that December 25th was his birthday, but far more likely that it was rather a pagan holiday repurposed to celebrate, his actual birthday day being forgotten.

I have a friend in Wisconsin that knows how much I love snow and so she texts me “Happy Birthday” every time it snows there. They even get snow on my actual birthday, November twenty-second.

I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I do not recall it ever snowing on my birthday there but we did have snow for Christmas more than a few times and it was always wonderful. Even as a boy, Irving Berlin’s song White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby’s was my favorite Christmas song. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas just like the ones I used to know…may your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmases be white.” Covered in snow, or cherries covered in chocolate, Christmas stocking stuffed with toys and goodies, and presents beneath the tree. “Red, brown, yellow, black or white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” I am not pushing a singular narrative, the non-religious more generic, and probably pagan Christmas has always appealed most to me.

It is in the widest sense that I wish each of you whatever your hue the Merriest Christmas of all. And may all your Christmases be bright.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

“White Christmas” from Irving Berlin’s WHITE CHRISTMAS (Official Lyric Video)

“White Christmas” from Irving Berlin’s WHITE CHRISTMAS (Official Lyric Video)