We should savor the quiet of a pandemic Christmas as others did through history
It will be quiet this year, the quiet of moments of your distant memory. The quiet when you stepped out in a new fallen snow; your breath visible in the cold darkness. The quiet of solemn prayer in a church in a sea of soft golden candlelight. Or, those rare fleeting quiet moments lost in a million other moments of noise; of overwhelming sensory bombardment of shopping malls, dinner parties, concerts, and flashing lights. Or perhaps it’s the quiet you could only imagine, in the treasured stories told by loved ones sharing holidays past of the Great Depression or the Spanish flu pandemic. Nevertheless this season will be quiet once again, offering an unequaled journey of introspection in a historic and fateful moment when the sacred season has converged with a worldwide pandemic. In the face of unbelievable tragedy, how will we utilize this rare moment?
We are inextricably linked to the stories of our past, the voices of our forebears who speak across the ages of acts of courage and daily struggles. My mother grew up in abject poverty, the daughter of farmers. She lived in a small white weather-boarded house outside of Liberty. When my grandfather received his tobacco check in December, he would purchase a bag of mixed nuts and fresh fruits - usually apples and oranges. His seasonal offering was met with eager anticipation, for they could not usually afford such items. Grandma would peel the citrus and savor the sweetness of each bite. Grandpa would sit in his rocker, nutcracker in hand, offering assorted kernels to my mother, their faces dappled by the firefight. For so many people now, my family’s experience was a pandemic Christmas. Now that we are destined to experience a more modest and time honored holiday in this extraordinary time in history, what stories might we offer to future generations of our moments of courage, our sorrows, our aspirations?
Our most treasured cultural interpretations of the holiday season, including the most celebrated books, cartoons, and films, remarkably speak to the pandemic holiday experience. You might say that during the pandemic we get to be residents inside our most beloved stories. In Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” our culture is on full display. The holidays have become a quest for obtaining objects, the exhausting, self-imposed odyssey of gift buying. The three ghosts haunt us here in this moment. In the absence of futile extravagance, we must instead, as Mr. Scrooge did eventually, celebrate selflessness, compassion, and paying it forward in a time of overwhelming need.
Similarly in Dr. Seuss’ “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” when the Whos of Whoville discovered they had no packages, lights, or feast, they still recognized that the true spirit of the season remained. “Maybe Christmas...doesn’t come from a store, perhaps, maybe Christmas is a little bit more”.
In Frank Capra’s “A Wonderful Life,” George Bailey has lost all hope until he is shown how much his life means to others. At the end he is so overwhelmed with joy from his revelation, that he runs through the streets of Bedford Falls wishing everyone a merry Christmas. When you are running down that street in your mind’s eye, running like you have never run before with the heartache of this year on your mind, what will you exclaim, joyful in the knowledge that a life with purpose extinguishes the darkness?
It will be quieter this year and perhaps lonelier. Yet the holiday season is a state of mind, encompassing the magic of a lifetime of memories, and the stories we will write of an extraordinary time -- a time that shall never be forgotten.
Angela Arnett Garner is a visual artist and freelance writer, but is best known for her social justice activism. She organized the first Indigenous Peoples Day ceremony in Kentucky history.