Musings: Recalling a better time at a Christmas past
A Christmas tree in a home makes the holiday feel special. Credit: iStock/David Sucsy
Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are coming around in a few days. Most gifts have been bought, cards sent, and decorations put up. It’s also a time to reflect on our troubles here and abroad — wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, global warming, the migrant crisis and poverty. Where is the message of “Peace on Earth and goodwill to men”?
I think about a Christmas when I was young and America not so troubled. It was 1957, during the Cold War, but I didn’t much understand such things. I was 8, living in Queens Village.
My mother and father didn’t have much money, but we always had a good Christmas, full of love and plenty of music, which my mother called “tonic for the soul.”
A few days before Christmas, my father and I set out to buy our Christmas tree, but that year our car wouldn’t start. It was a chilly, snow-covered night with flakes still falling, and my father had an idea.
We took my sled to the tree place, about half a mile away, and my father picked out a beautiful six-footer. He tied it atop my sled and guided it home as we sang Christmas carols.
My mother had set aside a special place for the tree by the fireplace. After it was settled in its stand, my mother took over, decorating it with love with every detail. Kindness and love seemed to bounce from house to house in those days, and neighbors greeted one another with a “Merry Christmas” as carolers sang.
Churches brimmed with worshipers, and the neighborhood displayed bright lights. I remember being in Christmas school plays in which I was a shepherd or one of the Three Wise Men. I wonder if those kinds of Christmases will ever return.
The picture-perfect Christmases in our memories may have been laced with imperfections, but I think they are better than the frenzied days we have now, when we may have lost the true meaning of Christmas — to love one another by caring and sharing.
I can’t help but hope and pray that America returns to traditional values, to live the true meaning of “peace and goodwill.”
— Frederick R. Bedell Jr., Bellerose
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