Fired up the fake fire and an old Christmas Movie, sat back with the kids to bring forth the holiday spirit early in December.

One was too young to have much holiday context but the other, at seven, was already curious about the magic of Christmas. Since Thanksgiving subtle points about Santa’s actual abilities, couched in ways the Elf on the Shelf might not see as treason. How does he get to everybody?

I had a cousin tell me her 12-year-old still believes – or just wants to. I’ll continue to game ways for mine to keep the faith, while at the same time rationalizing the magic in my own adult head too.

As the old movie got to Christmas Eve, his critical thinking centered around getting down all those dusty chimneys without injuring himself, what if the fire was still on; then to see Santa sit there and light up his pipe was the last straw. His face scrunched as if he was accidentally sinning or something.

Santa is much larger than that and would never smoke in people’s houses. Also, I told them there weren’t as many people back then, which got them thinking.

Where’s their tree? Why are there just stockings?

Maybe there weren’t there as many good kids back then?

That was funny.

No heat in the tiny little apartment. Surely no Christmas tree. There wasn’t nearly as much money as there is now. They couldn’t take a day off from their jobs and cut down a tree to have in their house as a decoration.

Maybe I shouldn’t have taken such an early tangent but I was already down that road…”Look at the five kids sleeping together with 10 blankets stacked on top of them. On Christmas maybe they would get a tiny car, a piece of candy, a nice meal…”

Their little faces turned precious.

The film lasted 15 minutes and the pre-World War II comparatives got to be too much. Dinner wasn’t ready. We had time for a whiteboard-aided fireside chat so they were off to find the drawing light board Santa brought last Christmas and some tracing paper. I thought I could sketch out the long run to economic dominance over the last 250 years, led by America, which in my mind, would explain what’s happened to Christmas.

It all started with Industry Innovation Growth and Scale, and naturally led to deforestation and polluted streams. That was sad so I went straight to their great grandparents, who began to believe a certain thing very strongly for the first time in history, something citizens never stood up for before. Which was that the powers that be – gov’t business etc – couldn’t just go into war mode, taking over other countries for resources or ideas anymore, and companies taking too much from the earth – that all had to stop. We didn’t even know not to litter back then. Citizens were standing up for the rights of the future for the first time ever. Government slowly listened but business kept expanding and dominating our lives. We talked about the 1980’s, about wealth and greed and the 1990’s, and technology, and about how we are 10 times richer today than we were in the 1990s. That seemed amazing even to my 5 year old.

Sure I skipped over a lot – coming off gold standard, what happened to the Native Americans, in Vietnam, to Bretton Woods; private equity, the mortgage fallout – it just wasn’t worth it, they got the point: there’s such a thing as too much.

All this and even still so many have so little. Still today, about one out of every five people on the whole planet are extremely poor. Poor those kids under all those blankets. This is where fairness came in, and justice, and also money in general.

Christmas has become something which doesn’t even remind us of Christmas anymore. I surmised, called in to set the table. They shock their heads but were confused.

We can’t forget our good fortunes. And why we celebrate.

Can’t forget.

Or we wither and die. Like a flower cut. Like Pamela.

* Pamela is (was) a purple flower that used to spring every year on our curb. She always wants to cut it and bring it inside. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. Who knows if Pamela will come back? She knows cutting kills the flower, we have to live with nature, not just take it.

 

We were talking about Christmas. How it’s gotten confusing and commercial over the last 100 years. Is simpler better. Is less more? Simpler times were also harder. Were they overall better?

Honestly, old days seem much better some days; some days, when I know we are overdoing the world, so much so, crunching up against capacity, running away from those who are left out…When I read the story of the future I look back fondly, naively,  onto days I never knew as if it was all rolling hills and fresh overflowing streams.

I didn’t have an answer to whether simpler was better. This I saw immediately as a problem – that I didn’t know. Of course it’s better now, I should have blurted. But I didn’t. I didn’t know, all things considered.

Well it sure doesn’t look better on TV.

Nope, she also declared. No color, two measly stockings.

Cold house. Tiny ham dinner. No Mine craft Legos.

Dinner was ready. My son was determined to invent a clean power source that would give rise to replenishing forests. My daughter was hungry and happy about how good times are now.

 

/ / / KJS 12/5/16