Christmas stories

One way to tell how truly remarkable or important an event or subject is, is the number of stories that grow up around it. I have no documented proof, but I would be willing to wager that there are more Christmas stories floating around than any other kind. I’ve been known to spin a Christmas yarn or two myself.
I certainly don’t consider myself to be in the same league with such story tellers as James Thurber or Garrison Keillor, or Dr. Seuss for that matter. Still, the true story of one Christmas in my childhood when my two older brothers sacrificed to give me something I desperately wanted, will bring a tear to my jaundiced old eyes every time I think of it.
The classic “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is one universal favorite, although I wonder if Clement Moore had any idea when he wrote this story of a victorian era Christmas in America told in poetic form, it would become so popular, or last so long. But one thing is for sure. The names of Santa’s reindeer, as Mr. Moore related them, have become a permanent part of our Christmas trivia.
If you can correctly name them all without looking at the next paragraph, you are a member of an elite group. Almost everybody misses one of them.
They are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder and Blitzen. Rudolph comes along much later with a little help from Gene Autry. The one most commonly missed in my experience is Donder. Many people want to call him Donner. Lots of folks miss Cupid, too, calling him, or her (I’m really not sure of the gender of any of them except Vixen, who definitely is a girl reindeer) Cupit, I suppose so it sounds better coming after Comet.
O. Henry’s tale of selflessness, “Gift of the Magi” is often used as an example of the true spirit of generosity. O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, a noted American short story writer. It is unusual, and perhaps even ironic, that this classic story of placing someone else’s happiness ahead of your own, should come from the pen of a man who was once imprisoned for embezzlement.
Of course, neither of these stories is based in the religious significance of Christmas. Some folks would argue that anything that doesn’t focus on the birth of Jesus trivializes Christmas. I once knew a woman who had an undisguised revulsion at Santa Claus, who she thought of as a secular symbol of earthly pleasure. She really didn’t care that one of the possible inspirations for the familiar figure of Santa Claus was the very real person, St. Nicholas, whose feast day is still celebrated on December 6. Ol’ St. Nick may have left candy and nuts in little Dutch children’s wooden shoes or he may have left money in the stockings of poor German girls for their dowry so they could get married. In either case, he was a generous old geezer who, in my humble opinion gentle readers, is worthy of at least some respect. Whoever he was, he deserves better than a permanent association with the commercial side of the holiday.
In the motion picture “Miracle on 34th Street,” also one of the better known Christmas stories, one of my favorite lines is, “There’s a lot of bad isms in the world, but one of the worst is commercialism..”
Nothing can beat the original Christmas story, though, not only for lasting, meaningful inspiration, but also for an example of genuine love and generosity. It’s sad that the actual meaning of the birth of Christ isn’t usually quoted during the Christmas season. It’s not in the texts of the familiar Christmas stories told in the gospels of Luke or Matthew, but rather in John: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.