Christmas 2024: A Tradition

Every year at Christmas I used to leave this site for a few days.  Just sort of to take in the holiday and enjoy it with friends and family.  And the last post that I would make was a reprint of column that I wrote for Elon's student newspaper.  It kind of became a holiday tradition of mine to publish it again, now twent-six years after it first ran.

I'll be honest.  I'm just not feeling much of the Christmas spirit this year.  There are a lot of reasons for that, which I haven't talked openly.  Maybe if I share this, it will make me feel better.  Perhaps it might lift up the hearts of other people who deserve to be happy.

Well, here it is.  Merry Christmas.  See y'all soon.

Originally published in The Pendulum, Elon University, 12/03/1998

Celebrating the Christmas season means celebrating the memories

Chris Knight
Columnist

 
     Some of the best memories that we take through life are about the times we cherish the most. And sometimes, it doesn’t take much to bring back the joy.

     Last Friday as I was driving around Greensboro, the all-time coolest Christmas song ever came over the speakers.

     Who knows what this genius recording artist’s name is? Does it really matter? Whoever he is, he’ll forever be remembered as giving us the immortal sound of “Dogs Singing Jingle Bells”:

 
Arf arf arf,
Arf arf arf,
Arf Arf Whoof Whoof Whuf…

 
     Ahh... you know how it goes.

     And there’s the ever-beuh-beuh-beauh-beautiful rendition of Porky Pig singing “Blue Christmas” and the Chipmunks and of course “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero,” but hearing those dogs singing “Jingle Bells...” ahhhhh.

     It brought me back to the very first time I heard that: on the radio coming back from school just before Christmas in 1982. I was in third grade at the time. And it brought back memories of the Christmas we had.

     It was cold and very cloudy. I remember that because Santa had brought me a telescope and I didn’t get to use it that night. Which wasn’t too big a worry, ‘cause me and my sister had our brand-new Atari 2600 to play with!

     Another Christmas memory: To this day, I’ll never forgive Anita for the pounding she gave me in “Combat.” I don’t care how fancy Sega or the Playstation get... they’ll never touch the 4-bit pleasures of the Atari!

     There have been many a Christmas since then, and I remember each one well, for all the little things they had with them.

     I’ll never forget Mom and Dad taking me and my sister to see Santa Claus at the mall in ‘84. That morning Dad asked if I’d come with him to cut firewood, so we rode the tractor into the woods. There had been snow earlier in the week, which lay around us in the crisp, cold morning.

     Dad also brought his 30-30 rifle, why I still don’t know. After we had the wood loaded, Dad asked if I wanted to try shootin’ the gun.

     There I was, a ten-year old kid, holding what looked like an anti-aircraft cannon in my tiny hands. Well, I aimed at this tree like Dad told me to, and pulled the trigger.

     To this day I cannot describe the colors that flashed before my eyes, or the sound in my ears. When my existence finally returned, I was flat on my back in the snow, and blood was gushing from between my eyes where the scope had hit my nose from the backfire.

     That night Santa saw the bandages and said “Ho ho hoooo, and what happened to you, little fellow?”

     “I got shot, Santa,” was the only thing I knew to say.

     Hey, was I gonna lie to the Big Man? Uh-uh, no way was I gonna lose all that loot!

     The following year’s Christmas I remember for many things, but especially feeding the young calves on our farm. It would be the last year our family would be running a dairy farm, and I had started helping with some of the work around the barn.

     Dad set up a Christmas tree in the milking room, with wrapped-up boxes beneath it.

     Tinsel hung from the front doors of the barn. And there was something about the feel of the place there, that has always held a special place in my heart, as if we knew that there would not be another Christmas like this one.

     I wish there had been another Christmas on the farm, because there’s something I wish I could have seen. And as silly as some people might find this, I really believe that it happens.

     You see, if you go out at midnight on Christmas Eve, you will see all the animals in the farmyard, and in the fields, and in the forests, and wherever else they may be, stop where they are.

     And then they kneel.

     They kneel in remembrance for another night, long ago. It was Christmas, but how many people could know it then?

     Nothing remarkable, to be sure: Caesar had decreed a census through the land, and each man went with his family to his town.

     One man in particular took his wife, a young woman quick with child. But there was no room for them at the inn. So that night, in a dirty and filthy stable and surrounded by animals, a child was born.

     You see, it’s easy for us to forget. At this time of the year, we are too overwhelmed by the consumption and the material and the glitter and all the customs that come with Christmas.

     And it’s too easy for us to forget that Christmas is, before everything else, a birthday.

     But the animals, who watched over Him as He lay as a newborn babe, two millenia ago... the animals have not forgotten.

     And so they kneel every Christmas and give glory to the newborn king, and in awe that God would send His Son to live among us in the greatest act of love.

     And to teach us many things, but especially to “love one another”. And to bridge the gap between man and God.

     The birth of Jesus Christ: the greatest Christmas present there will ever be. His birth, which would give mankind the greatest present it could ever ask for.

     Who in the world on that night could know the price that this present would someday have?

     Heaven and Earth sang praises to His glory on that night. The animals have always remembered that night. And Heaven and Earth still praise and sing unto Him.

     And if you only take a little time out from how busy things become at this part of the year, you can hear the singing, too. And it is a great temptation to join in that chorus.

     And perhaps in hearing, we will not forget the real meaning of Christmas, either.

     This Christmas Eve night I plan to be outside, with the same telescope that I got for Christmas all those years ago, and trying to envision a bright star over Bethlehem. Around midnight, I’m going to take a walk over to my aunt’s farm.

     Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth, and goodwill toward men.

Dedicated to the memory of W.C. “Mutt” Burton, for whom Christmas was always “In My Bones.”

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Back from seeing The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie

"HEY!  UNTO YOU A CHILD IS BORN!!!"

I needed to see this movie right now. 

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a story near and dear to my heart.  I played the head firefighter in two productions of the stage play for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County.  That was years ago and I still  have very fond memories of  those shows.  So I was curious about how this new adaptation, directed by Dallas Jenkins, would be.

This new film (there was a television movie back in the early Eighties, so this is the second time that The Best Christmas Pageant Ever has been formatted for the screen) pretty much follows the plot of the original novel.  The Herdmans, AKA "The worst kids in the history of the world" are the juvenile blight upon the whole town.  But a series of events leads to them not only coming to church one Sunday morning, but also demanding to be in the annual Christmas pageant.  The uppity church folks want nothing to do with the Herdmans.  But as the story progresses we find that the Herdmans maybe "get" the Christmas story better than some ever do.  This is a story that is both heartfelt and hilarious.  A perfect holiday tale out of the Seventies.

I thought the movie was great, although maybe a bit slow-going at first.  I was expecting more "nasty" from the Herdman kids, but what is shown in the movie is pretty much in keeping with their depiction in Barbara Robinson's book.  This is a story more than fifty years old and what seems tame today was no doubt quite shocking then.  So my expectations were biased, through the lens of modern sensibilities (if only we could go back to that more innocent America).  It's a well-cast film, especially the child actors.

I saw it with a pretty large audience for a holiday movie that's not necessarily a "tent-pole" spectacle.  Obviously most of the people at the theater today were there to see Wicked (a film I'm hearing only crazy good about) but in the showing I caught there was still a substantial crowd.  I did notice that I was the only single person, unaccompanied by anyone else, at the showing.  But that's okay.  This story is a part of my life and I was going to be there for that sake.

Is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever on the level of a true holiday classic film?  I'll say it has potential for that.  This is the kind of Christmas movie that there isn't made much of anymore.  You know, films like A Christmas Story, and even National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  I can see this movie becoming something families enjoy together every year about this time.  Hey, it took a long time for A Christmas Story to come around to the level of holiday tradition, too.  I think this movie can make that list, too.

Anyhoo, after all the craziness my life has had lately, my brain very much needed something sweet and endearing and comical to distract itself with.  And that is just what The Best Christmas Pageant Ever delivered.  I'll give it three stars out of five.

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Christmas 2023: Return of a Tradition

To be honest, I don't know if I should do this.  It seems like it would be more ideal to bring this back during a better Christmas.

But when would that be?  We aren't guaranteed a tomorrow, much less a holiday that could be years from now.

It's like this: for a very long time, every year in the days before Christmas, I would post an article that I wrote for my college's newspaper, in 1998.  A few weeks ago was the twenty-fifth anniversary of it getting published.  When I started this blog some years after college, that essay seemed like a good thing to make a holiday tradition out of.

I just checked and the last time I did that was in 2013.  Ten whole years ago.

In 2013 I was recently back home from spending a week in voluntary commitment to a psychiatric facility, because of depression.  Well, a few other things that preceded that too, that had also really hit home.  I don't know how I managed to eke out the tradition that year.

And then in 2014, Dad passed away just before Thanksgiving.  There was no keeping the tradition after that.

Since then I've struggled to keep the blog going at times, occasionally wondering what is the point of it.  But I always seem to make myself realize that this is, as it always has been, a chronicle of the human condition, seen through the eyes of one particular and peculiar person.  With all his strengths and weaknesses, warts and all.

And then there was my picking up stakes and traveling across America, looking for a new place to hang my hat.  It was a quest that brought my dog Tammy and I all the way to California.  That didn't work out so friends invited us to stay with them in South Carolina for awhile.  Now I'm living in a real home, and have had a serious career under my belt.  Unfortunately the current economy made me have to look for other work.  Which is very sad, because I truly loved my job at the Department of Mental Health.

 Well, I guess... things could be much worse.  Despite circumstances there is still a roof over our heads, food on the table, a car that still runs.  Tammy and I are together and Lord willing will be for many more years to come.

And for the first time in a very long time, definitely since before the worst of the manic depression cranked up in stark earnest, I've found an abiding faith in God again.

I suppose if nothing else, that by itself qualifies the return of the tradition this year.

So here it is, for the first time in a decade.  And with that I am going to take a few days off from blogging.  Allow myself a period of reflection and consideration, as much as might be possible.  Maybe it will be a season in which I can draw further close to God.  I would really like that.

Until next time, Merry Christmas.  And now...

 

 

 Originally published in The Pendulum, Elon University, 12/03/1998

Celebrating the Christmas season means celebrating the memories

Chris Knight
Columnist

 
     Some of the best memories that we take through life are about the times we cherish the most. And sometimes, it doesn’t take much to bring back the joy.

     Last Friday as I was driving around Greensboro, the all-time coolest Christmas song ever came over the speakers.

     Who knows what this genius recording artist’s name is? Does it really matter? Whoever he is, he’ll forever be remembered as giving us the immortal sound of “Dogs Singing Jingle Bells”:

 
Arf arf arf,
Arf arf arf,
Arf Arf Whoof Whoof Whuf…

 
     Ahh... you know how it goes.

     And there’s the ever-beuh-beuh-beauh-beautiful rendition of Porky Pig singing “Blue Christmas” and the Chipmunks and of course “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero,” but hearing those dogs singing “Jingle Bells...” ahhhhh.

     It brought me back to the very first time I heard that: on the radio coming back from school just before Christmas in 1982. I was in third grade at the time. And it brought back memories of the Christmas we had.

     It was cold and very cloudy. I remember that because Santa had brought me a telescope and I didn’t get to use it that night. Which wasn’t too big a worry, ‘cause me and my sister had our brand-new Atari 2600 to play with!

     Another Christmas memory: To this day, I’ll never forgive Anita for the pounding she gave me in “Combat.” I don’t care how fancy Sega or the Playstation get... they’ll never touch the 4-bit pleasures of the Atari!

     There have been many a Christmas since then, and I remember each one well, for all the little things they had with them.

     I’ll never forget Mom and Dad taking me and my sister to see Santa Claus at the mall in ‘84. That morning Dad asked if I’d come with him to cut firewood, so we rode the tractor into the woods. There had been snow earlier in the week, which lay around us in the crisp, cold morning.

     Dad also brought his 30-30 rifle, why I still don’t know. After we had the wood loaded, Dad asked if I wanted to try shootin’ the gun.

     There I was, a ten-year old kid, holding what looked like an anti-aircraft cannon in my tiny hands. Well, I aimed at this tree like Dad told me to, and pulled the trigger.

     To this day I cannot describe the colors that flashed before my eyes, or the sound in my ears. When my existence finally returned, I was flat on my back in the snow, and blood was gushing from between my eyes where the scope had hit my nose from the backfire.

     That night Santa saw the bandages and said “Ho ho hoooo, and what happened to you, little fellow?”

     “I got shot, Santa,” was the only thing I knew to say.

     Hey, was I gonna lie to the Big Man? Uh-uh, no way was I gonna lose all that loot!

     The following year’s Christmas I remember for many things, but especially feeding the young calves on our farm. It would be the last year our family would be running a dairy farm, and I had started helping with some of the work around the barn.

     Dad set up a Christmas tree in the milking room, with wrapped-up boxes beneath it.

     Tinsel hung from the front doors of the barn. And there was something about the feel of the place there, that has always held a special place in my heart, as if we knew that there would not be another Christmas like this one.

     I wish there had been another Christmas on the farm, because there’s something I wish I could have seen. And as silly as some people might find this, I really believe that it happens.

     You see, if you go out at midnight on Christmas Eve, you will see all the animals in the farmyard, and in the fields, and in the forests, and wherever else they may be, stop where they are.

     And then they kneel.

     They kneel in remembrance for another night, long ago. It was Christmas, but how many people could know it then?

     Nothing remarkable, to be sure: Caesar had decreed a census through the land, and each man went with his family to his town.

     One man in particular took his wife, a young woman quick with child. But there was no room for them at the inn. So that night, in a dirty and filthy stable and surrounded by animals, a child was born.

     You see, it’s easy for us to forget. At this time of the year, we are too overwhelmed by the consumption and the material and the glitter and all the customs that come with Christmas.

     And it’s too easy for us to forget that Christmas is, before everything else, a birthday.

     But the animals, who watched over Him as He lay as a newborn babe, two millenia ago... the animals have not forgotten.

     And so they kneel every Christmas and give glory to the newborn king, and in awe that God would send His Son to live among us in the greatest act of love.

     And to teach us many things, but especially to “love one another”. And to bridge the gap between man and God.

     The birth of Jesus Christ: the greatest Christmas present there will ever be. His birth, which would give mankind the greatest present it could ever ask for.

     Who in the world on that night could know the price that this present would someday have?

     Heaven and Earth sang praises to His glory on that night. The animals have always remembered that night. And Heaven and Earth still praise and sing unto Him.

     And if you only take a little time out from how busy things become at this part of the year, you can hear the singing, too. And it is a great temptation to join in that chorus.

     And perhaps in hearing, we will not forget the real meaning of Christmas, either.

     This Christmas Eve night I plan to be outside, with the same telescope that I got for Christmas all those years ago, and trying to envision a bright star over Bethlehem. Around midnight, I’m going to take a walk over to my aunt’s farm.

     Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth, and goodwill toward men.

Dedicated to the memory of W.C. “Mutt” Burton, for whom Christmas was always “In My Bones.”

 

 

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The Knight "Many Santas" Hypothesis

Work with me here.  This is something that popped into being inside my gray matter a few weeks ago.  Personally, I can't find any argument about how this is not a viable theory.  Although I confess that I did ummm... "borrow" some things from current pop culture.   But as Santa Claus is a character who has borrowed much else across the centuries I think it's appropriate.

So here it is: my hypothesis for why there are so many Santa Clauses, how Santa gets ALL that work done in a single night, how Santa knows everything about whether you've been bad or good.  And that ultimate question: does Santa Claus exist at all?

All right, here we go...

Santa Claus is a multi-universal entity. That's why we see so many of them at Christmas time. Most of the Santas you're seeing are from other universes who are in ours for awhile. Each Santa has a territory staked out, so it's always Santa who brings toys, they're just not necessarily Santa from our universe.  Santa is living, breathing proof that the "many worlds" theory is true.  He is the anthromorphic personification of quantum mechanics.

 

This is also why "Santa" takes so many forms wherever on Earth he's at. Father Christmas? Yup, he's from another universe too.  So is Julmoten (and HIS multiples), Papa Noel, and every other incarnation of a kindly old man who brings presents to good little girls and boys at Christmas.

Santas from across the Multiverse

Being a multiversal entity gives Santa access to all kinds of wild technology, some of which seems absolutely magical to us mere mortals.  This explains the flying sleigh.  Reindeer?  Those are mostly just for appearance's sake.  The real Santa's sleigh is a miracle of applied science that is as mundane to many others in the multiverse as a truck-pulled sleigh in a Christmas parade is for us today.

 

(That Santa?  Yup, he's a multiversal agent also.)

 

Every so often the Santas, all couple of million or so of them, congregate at the North Pole, which is the nexus of all those divergent universes. There the Council of Clauses set forth policy, handle legislation and otherwise provide leadership for all the Santas.

 

Who is that Santa Claus you see at the mall, or ringing a bell for charitable contributions? Is that the real Santa? The answer is no AND yes. Santa Claus is a mythic wave function given temporal form. If you share your Christmas list with one Santa, it's as if you've shared it with EVERY Santa.

 

And it goes without saying: all of those Santa Clauses operating in the world have a MUCH easier time than the government does in watching for who's been naughty or nice.

 

So be good and keep the faith, my friends. Yes Virginia, there most certainly IS a Santa Claus. And he is everywhere!

 

UPDATE: a kind reader sent us a photograph of one of the "Quantum Clauses".  This Santa is in the Reidsville, North Carolina, United States area:

 

 

 

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Sharing something very special tonight

So, this past week a memory just popped into mind.  About something I had written a long time ago as a student at Elon.  Awhile back I discovered an online archive of every issue of The Pendulum, which was the college's newspaper.  I've shared a few of the op-ed pieces I wrote for the paper already.

I don't know why I found myself thinking of it but I went looking for it.  And lo and behold I not only found it, but I realized today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication!

Maybe there is something at work, that such synchronicity happened right just now.

For many years at Christmas time I posted the text of this piece.  It was a holiday tradition for this blog.  But I haven't done that in a long while.  Maybe this year would be a good occasion to bring that tradition back.

Well anyway, here it is.  From the December 3rd, 1998 issue of Elon College's The Pendulum: my essay about Christmas and its memories.  Click to enlarge the image.

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This is the kind of people that Americans used to be

It was 1983, forty whole years ago.  At the White House.  "Santa Claus" came that year in the form of Mr. T.  Here he is with beloved First Lady Nancy Reagan sitting on his lap:

Damn it.  What the hell has become of us, since then?

We aren't like that anymore.  Our culture and society has become so degenerated that something so playful like that photo would be practically impossible in today's environment.

But once, in seemingly a better time and a different reality, we honestly were like that.

I like to believe that we could be again.

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Play that Mariah Carey song and it'll be THREE kittens...

Yes, at  12:01 this morning a lot of radio stations began their playing two entire months of Christmas music.  Something which I have never liked.

Good friend of this blog Lee Shelton made this graphic several years ago.  He said that it's time to bring it back out and I agree wholeheartedly...

Wow.  The original pic is from 2004.  A few months before I began this blog.  I weigh about 30 pounds more now.  A lot of that I gained in a very short period of time beginning in late 2008, after going on some medication for treatment mostly of depression.  I lost most of that but some of it still lingers.  I think that twenty years later I'm looking pretty healthy.

That's my father you see behind me.  I remember exactly which cap it is that he's wearing.

Okay well anyhoo, you have all been duly notified.  Look, I don't mind Christmas music for a few days after Christmas.  But before Thanksgiving is WAY too early.  It's making the year seem to go by much faster than it should.  There is no rational reason for it.  So, why the %@$& do radio stations DO it?

If radio stations still had human disk jockies I could probably call them and ask.  I guess we'll just never know.

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Playing Christmas music... after Christmas

Today is December 30th.  And there is a major radio station nearby that is still playing wall to wall Christmas music.  My supervisor told me that they don't stop until New Year's Day.

At first I thought that was a little overkill.  Something that I touched upon in a post from last year.  I still believe that starting up the Christmas season earlier and earlier makes the entire year go by much too fast.

But while listening to the music while dining out last night (I still think that "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time" by Paul McCartney sounds too much like the theme from A Clockwork Orange), it gradually dawned on me: that letting the songs play on after Christmas Day, is truly honoring the holiday and everything about it.

And the more I ponder it, the more I like it.  There is something just very right about letting Christmas run its course.  It shouldn't come to an abrupt halting stop on Christmas Night, take down the ornaments until next year.  Christmas Day should be the centerpiece of something larger.  It's better to have that day, and then enjoy the rest at a nice, easy pace.  Letting it wind down in peace, instead of making the big shopping to-do on the day after Christmas.

I don't know if playing Christmas music is something that should carry on through the full Twelve Days of Christmas, but it could still lead up to New Year's Day.  And when you think about it, that brings us gentiles on equal footing in comparison to our Jewish brethren and their eight days of Hanukah!

Maybe in years to come we will come to appreciate Christmas as but the most significant of an entire period of joy and celebration.  It is certainly something that I will be mindful of and endeavoring to honor.  And hey, it gives all the more compelling reason to keep watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation after the presents have been unwrapped.

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Return of the Deep-Fried Turkey!

Hey gang, hope the holidays have been going well for y'all!  Christmas was rather good on this end.  I wound up with some Star Wars, some LEGO sets (Christmas is NEVER complete for me without Star Wars and LEGO no matter how old I get), some clothing, my mini dachshund Tammy received a bunch of toys.  And one way or another a lot of new cooking stuff came into my possession.

And speaking of cooking, steer your peepers onto this bad boy:

That's the first turkey I've been able to deep-fry since Christmas 2013!  Between my father passing away just before the following Thanksgiving, journeying across America and to a new hometown, getting situated in a house etc. it just wasn't practical all this time.

But Christmas Eve 2019 was a glorious return to feeding my irrational addiction to fried turkey.  I got a shiny new rig and it was screaming to be inaugurated.  A baptism of fire, so to speak...

Sixteen-pounds of turkey, mega-marinaded with garlic butter and slathered in Cajun rub.  45 minutes in the hot oil and out came a juicy, tender, succulent Christmas Eve feast for friends and family.

My friends, I truly have a home of my own now.  A house is not a home without a turkey fryer :-)

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Christmas In Your Face!

Awright, c’mon people.  We gotta stop this.  As Barney Fife said, “Nip it in the bud!”  It’s gone on far enough.  If we don’t put an end to it now, in a few years the tinsel will start going up right around when Major League Baseball is having the all-star game.

Or maybe once again your friend and humble narrator is on the losing side of history.  Sometimes I feel like Kevin McCarthy at the end of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers: flailing arms at indifferent traffic, vainly hoping that somebody, anybody will heed the warning.

Last week was Halloween.  That afternoon I was on the highway en route to meet a client and started scanning through radio stations.  More than a few had well-curated themes for the day (“Thriller”, “Dark Lady”, even “Clap For The Wolfman” etc.).  Stopping on one channel, I was expecting to hear either “Monster Mash” or at least an Elton John hit…

Instead it was Eartha Kitt singing “Santa Baby”.

Practically two months before Christmas.  Four weeks before Thanksgiving.  Hours before Halloween candy was going to be doled out to the trickster-treatsters.  And already a radio station had begun holiday season music twenty-four seven.

By the end of the following work week, three stations had begun Christmas music pausing only for commercial breaks.  Those, too, have become riddled with sleigh bells ringing.

And then my Facebook feed began filling up with photos of Christmas trees going up.

Maybe it's just me, but at this point in November the only things associated with the holiday should be rehearsals and scenery for productions of A Christmas Carol…

Rome wasn't built in a day.  Neither was Victorian London.

…or professional Santas needing to size up whether kids one to ninety-two have been naughty or nice:

Steampunk Santa
(Eric H. Smith, renaissance man extraordinaire)

Charles Schulz and Bill Melendez left us before their work was done.  I can see it now: A Charlie Brown Christmas Part II, with grown-up good ol’ Chuck on the sofa in his therapist’s office, lamenting how there’s too much Christmas.  And the shrink telling him “wah-wah-wah-waaaah.”

It has become a yuleslide into madness.  

What’s wrong with us?

What in a sane world should be no more than a single month of festivity has now crept across fully one-sixth of the entire year.  And now, well…

Christmas just isn’t that special anymore.

I always thought it would be something to be truly thankful for, to put up a Christmas tree with the kids no earlier than three weeks before the big day, Chipmunks singing all the while.  But Chipmunks music before Thanksgiving should be nobody’s idea of fun.

Dad used to shoot mistletoe out of trees with his rifle.  I’m not sure that mistletoe is even in season before November.

Anyone else remember the old Sears Wishbook catalogues?  How I used to ogle those beautiful two-page spreads of Star Wars toys.  Like the mirage of a distant oasis promising shade and water, and that sliver of magnificence beckoning to trudge through those three months until Christmas.  That’s all of the holidays that we had at that point on the calendar.  That’s all we needed, maybe even wanted.  Any more than that and it would not possibly have been enjoyable.  Indeed, it would have robbed from the eventual thrill.  The Wishbooks taught me in their own way that delayed gratification is a virtue.

Nobody seems to know what delayed gratification is anymore.  And that’s a tragic, tragic thing.  Waiting has become a weakness.  Patience, an alien quality.

Or maybe making Christmas come quicker is just part and parcel with our society in general.  When people are throwing tantrums about slow wi-fi and some getting literally killed for a Popeye’s chicken sandwich, something has gone terribly wrong.

Christmas should be a solid punctuation at the end of every year.  Instead it has become a vague bloated morass encroaching toward summer and spring.

Am I bearing any animosity or grudge toward those who are “getting into the Christmas spirit” way early?  No, of course not.  And if my friends and neighbors are feeling the sincere tug of the season already, well... I won't judge them.  Not at all.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize ever more so that there are very few things worth having ill will over.  Life is too short.  Way too short.

It’s just that making the Christmas season come about earlier and earlier is making the entire year go by faster and faster.  It’s making that precious lifetime even more brief.

And it would be nice if it could be stretched out and marveled at for its own sake.  Instead of what I’m coming to be persuaded that Lucy was right about: Christmas as nothing but a scheme by a big eastern syndicate.

That’s not what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

Christmas shouldn't be in our faces.  It shouldn’t be worn on our sleeves this early on.  It shouldn't be in our wallets and pocketbooks.

Christmas should be in our hearts.  And what the heart pours forth so wantonly, too often becomes lesser so sacred.

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A joyful Christmas despite myself

Here I am, the day after Christmas 2014.  And I'm only writing this because a lot of people were praying for me yesterday, that I might get through this holiday.

Grief is hard enough already.  It's especially heartbreaking when it comes so close to the holiday season and you see that empty chair at the table.  It's not something that I haven't experienced already.  Mom passed away three days after Christmas three years ago, and because of that there was already a shadow cast over Christmas and New Year's.  On my 26th birthday we buried my grandmother: something that I'm always reminded of on that day of the year.

This year has been more excruciating than anything I was prepared for.  Because it's so fresh.  Because it's only now sinking in that Dad is gone and is not coming back, no matter how many times I keep expecting him to come through that door every morning, or whenever I see his truck parked at home and find myself thinking that he's inside playing with our dog.

For the several days and maybe a week and a half before Christmas, I was doing pretty well.  Our theatre guild was in the midst of its production of It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical and being around so many people - people who I have worked with before and people who I only now have had the pleasure of making friendships with - was a pick-me-up that I sorely needed more than I'd realized.  And then the show ended this past Sunday and just like that the joy began leaving me.

Let me be more succinct: I knew what was coming and I did not want to have to go through it.  But Christmas was coming, and I had to bear it.  I'm not the only one going through this either: two very dear friends and their family are also going through this holiday season without their mother, a wonderful woman who passed away a month before Dad did.

Tuesday was hell.  Christmas Eve I was assaulted with a lot of thoughts that I cried to God to please take away.  Thoughts about Dad.  Thoughts about being alone, not in the "no friendships" way.  It has been my dream to be a husband and a father for so very long and only now have I been able to reach a state of mind that could let me have that... but I've missed a decade and a half of life because of mental illness and having that happiness seems further away than ever.

It has been a hard thing to be without Dad in other ways too, because he really was supporting me as I wrote my book.  I lost a lot of dependable work this past spring because of an extended bout of severe depression - enough to keep me from writing a word for a major project - and I've been struggling ever since to make up for it.  For now, let's just say that I'm scraping by.  But in a very weird way, I'm thankful for where I am at the moment.  It has re-taught me about the things that do matter most in life.  I am realizing more than before that for all of my circumstance right now, that I am better off than a lot of people who suffer from mental illness.  I may not be where I want to be, but God is providing for me and I'm not having to go hungry.  It is teaching me to rely on God more than I ever have before, and I am thankful for that.

I had no idea that poverty could be so much fun!

(Okay, forget I said that.  It's NOT exactly "poverty".  A tremendous lack of previous resources perhaps, yes... but I'm eating and get to stay warm at night and have a roof over my head: something that too many people in this world can't get to say that they have.)

All of those regrets and more came upon me on Christmas Eve and I desperately wanted to flee them.  I took my medication early that night and tried to go to sleep.  It only lasted until 1 in the morning, at which point I took MORE medication and tried to let it work.  By 8 it was clear that nothing had worked.  Only breakfast at my aunt and uncle's place at 9 brought direly-welcomed respite from the sadness and despair.  I got to have a little Christmas after all.  In fact, it was a Christmas that will go down as one of the most memorable of my life.

Then I came home and took even more medicine and crawled into bed and curled up in the fetal position and waited for the day to end.

I don't know what made me wake up at 4 in the afternoon.  Maybe it was Tammy - my dog - scratching at the door to go out for "relief".  I took her out and when I came back the urge to talk to someone... to anyone... overwhelmed me.

I went on Facebook and asked people to please hold me up in prayer right then, because I was needing it.  And then I spent the next three and a half hours on the phone talking to some especially close friends.

And after that, I came away feeling the most uplifted, encouraged and spiritually renewed than I have been since well before Dad died.

One friend, someone who is as close to me as a sister, told me something that I hadn't thought of: that Dad and Mom were having their first Christmas together in three years.  And that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus and that now Mom and Dad get to celebrate Christmas in the presence of Christ Himself.  She also told me something else: that Heaven really is closer to us than we realize.  We just can't see it with eyes on this earthly shore.  But our loved ones are there, they really are.  Which is funny, because a second friend shared that same thought with me just as many weeks ago.

During a conversation with another friend, he shared an essay with me, about grief during Christmas time, and a reminder that though we may grief, our grief is not that of this world.  Still another friend reminded me that I am unbelievably blessed with friends and family... and friends who are close as any family can be.  As Clarence Oddbody told George Bailey: a person with friends is far richer than anything that money can provide on this earth.

That's something too.  I had found myself asking God to please show me that my life did have purpose and meaning, that despite how things have gone that I might have a wonderful life.  I had secretly hoped for some direct message from Him.  In the end God didn't send a "second class angel" at all.  He sent people who are so very dear and precious to my heart, and in their own way they each helped to convey the precisely right message that I needed to hear.

Yesterday evening I ended up feeling joy and contentment and peace that I had not thought possible.  I felt cheered-up enough to spent the rest of the night comforted by the peace of God, that surpasses all understanding.

I even felt cheered-up enough to do something that earlier in the day I did not have any interest in at all: watching this year's Doctor Who Christmas special.  I'm glad that I did.  "Last Christmas" was like John Carpenter's The Thing meets Inception meets Miracle on 34th Street with a little dash of Alien.  Solid entertainment courtesy of the Doctor Who franchise.  I needed that too.

I let the rest of the night go on as I let the feeling of Christmas joy wash over me, and linger past midnight.  Then I went to bed, but not before thanking God for bringing me through the grief and letting me have joy on this holiday: joy that I hadn't ever expected and will remember for the rest of my life.

Let me put it this way: this Christmas was a Christmas of miracles for me.  I couldn't have gotten through it without the prayers of a lot of amazing people.  And I could not have come through it without God providing friendships and family who lifted me up exactly as I needed for them to do.  There have been a lot of instances this past month and more that I have seen timing happen in ways that can only be described as perfect.  Some of those involved loss.  This time, it was timing that led to me gaining something.  Something that aroused a greater faith in God than I had been prepared for.  That it came just in time for Christmas was the proverbial cherry on top.

Dad would want me to have been happy this holiday, even without his presence at the breakfast table yesterday morning.  He would want me to go on with my life, and to be happy and to keep finding happiness.  My friends encouraged me to know that there is still plenty of time to have the happiness that I have dreamed of having for so long... and I believe them.  One of these years, in the not too distant future, I hope that will be me sharing photos on Facebook of my children having Christmas morning.  I long to see Christmas through their eyes, just as Dad saw it through those of my sister and I.

This, was a far better Christmas than I was ready to be blessed with.  I don't think that would have been possible without some of the despair and depression that I went through on the way to it.  Maybe that is God's timing too: that I might have a lot of sadness before I could appreciate the joy.

I like to believe so.

This was one of the best Christmases that I've ever had.  I don't know how those in years to come will compare, but this Christmas is forever going to be part of me that I will take with me always.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go.  There is a handsomely-endowed gift card for Barnes & Noble in my possession that is screaming to be put to good use this afternoon :-)

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It's a very Dalek Christmas!

Okay, that's it.  I give up.  I didn't know how having a Christmas this year was going to be at all possible.  In light of everything that's happened in the past nearly two months, yuletide joy was something that seemed way past feasibility.  Although, I haven't begrudged anyone from having that.  Just feels like I'm on the outside looking in this year, is all.

But then before tonight's performance of It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical two young ladies who I've been working backstage with surprised me with a little something.  And as I told Joy and Makia, this has to be the sweetest thing that has happened to me since Lord knows when.

Look!  Dalek action figures from Doctor Who!

Joy and Makia spotted these in a nearby store and... well, words cannot possibly convey how touched I am to be given these by two such wonderful people.  As you can see that's the classic Dalek seen in "Genesis of the Daleks" from 1975 during the Tom Baker era.  Along with one of the utterly insane variants witnessed two years ago in "Asylum of the Daleks" from the midst of Matt Smith's reign as the Doctor.

I can't help but feel some Christmas cheer now.  It's A Wonderful Life is a story about how every life has meaning.  Your own life too.  Even if you can't see on your own how it could be.  In the end George Bailey discovered that he had riches that he never imagined, and right now - in the midst of where life has led me these past few months - being given these Dalek figures by two friends I've made through this production has let me feel much like George Bailey.

Incidentally, these are the very first anything of the Daleks that I've ever owned.  I've been a fan of them for almost as long as I've been watching Doctor Who (more than thirty years now) but for whatever reason I've never had any to call my own.  They now have a very special place of honor: on my "motivational table" on my computer desk, sitting next to the monitor.  It has things on it that I sometimes look at while I'm writing my book.  Already on it are Emmet and Wyldstyle minifigs from The LEGO Movie, and three expansion packs for the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures game (which will remain unopened and unplayed-with until my work on the book is finished).  Two Daleks in the fore of it all is going to be the cherry on top, 'cuz hey: it's tough getting more motivational than having two Daleks aiming their guns at you, right?

Thanks again to Joy and Makia for giving me a lot to smile about this holiday season :-)

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Classic SESAME STREET: Bert and Ernie's "The Gift of the Magi"

Good googeley moogely... it's been ages since I posted any Sesame Street clips!!  I think maybe at least two years, maybe longer than that.  How in the world did I overlook such timeless material?  Shame on me!

Time to make up for it.  And boy howdy, do I get to make up for it...

I was waaaay young when this aired but I vividly remember it.  It was part of a Sesame Street Christmas special from... I think it was 1980?  The other part of it that's still in my head is Big Bird sitting on top of the apartment building waiting for Santa, and wondering how in the world would the big guy get into those tiny little chimneys.

But this is the real highlight of the show: Bert and Ernie in an adaptation of O. Henry's classic holiday tale "The Gift of the Magi", as only Bert and Ernie can.  And poignantly, it also features Mr. Hooper.  Played by Will Lee, who sadly passed away later on in 1982 and subsequently became the subject of a very moving episode where Big Bird tries to come to grips with Hooper's death.

So here it is: Bert and Ernie and Mr. Hooper, reminding us that the beauty of Christmas is not in the getting, but in the giving.  I present to you, dear readers, with a most wonderful take on "The Gift of the Magi":

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Merry Christmas 2013

It occurred to me a few days ago that I had yet to post the traditional Christmas piece this year.  I don't have any particular reason why that shouldn't be done this year, except that in many ways this... well, it's not the usual Christmas for me.

It was two years ago, three days after Christmas, that my mother passed away.  But it's only been in the past few weeks that I've let that sink in, found myself able to let go of lingering matters that were there.  I got through Christmas last year because of some things that aren't there this year.  Absent those, this is at last the holiday season that I'm letting myself be confronted with that loss (and a number of others).

I'm not going to avoid them.  It's time to let them confront me and for me to come out the better for it.  That's happening already.

A few weeks ago I had myself voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital.  I had to do it because my life had become completely unmanageable.  It was severe depression, to a far worse degree than I've ever endured.  It was also because the medication I've been on to treat the bipolar needed some drastic adjustment.  I spent a week there, spending most of my time studying my Bible.  And prayer, lots of prayer.

I had to do it because the depression was taking a toll on my personal life, my work, everything.  Had I not done that, well... I don't like to contemplate what might have happened.  But I did address it and I don't think there's any weakness or shame in admitting it.  And I came out of it much stronger than I had been before.  God brought me through it.  He really did.  I can't claim any part of that victory for myself.  I could write a book about the things I went through in the hospital, especially at night.  God brought me through each night, just as He brought me through this night.  Just as He is still bringing me through it.  I won't dare boast of any of that for my own.

Long story short: I'm not having any Christmas presents this year.  I'm too much thankful for the things God has given me already than to want anything that I don't have.  It took me a long time to really find the contentment that comes with His grace and to relent unto His will, His timing.

Maybe that'll make what come next on this post have more meaning than ever.

It was my best friend Chad who asked this morning if I was doing the traditional Christmas post on this blog.  After some thought about it, I'm going through with it.  Hard to believe I wrote this fifteen years ago this month, in the last issue before the holiday break.

So here it is, again, one of my favorite pieces from the old college days and something of a tradition on The Knight Shift...


Originally published in The Pendulum, Elon University, 12/03/1998

Celebrating the Christmas season means celebrating the memories

Chris Knight
Columnist
     Some of the best memories that we take through life are about the times we cherish the most. And sometimes, it doesn’t take much to bring back the joy.
     Last Friday as I was driving around Greensboro, the all-time coolest Christmas song ever came over the speakers.
     Who knows what this genius recording artist’s name is? Does it really matter? Whoever he is, he’ll forever be remembered as giving us the immortal sound of “Dogs Singing Jingle Bells”:
Arf arf arf,
Arf arf arf,
Arf Arf Whoof Whoof Whuf…
     Ahh... you know how it goes.
     And there’s the ever-beuh-beuh-beauh-beautiful rendition of Porky Pig singing “Blue Christmas” and the Chipmunks and of course “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Christmas at Ground Zero,” but hearing those dogs singing “Jingle Bells...” ahhhhh.
     It brought me back to the very first time I heard that: on the radio coming back from school just before Christmas in 1982. I was in third grade at the time. And it brought back memories of the Christmas we had.
     It was cold and very cloudy. I remember that because Santa had brought me a telescope and I didn’t get to use it that night. Which wasn’t too big a worry, ‘cause me and my sister had our brand-new Atari 2600 to play with!
     Another Christmas memory: To this day, I’ll never forgive Anita for the pounding she gave me in “Combat.” I don’t care how fancy Sega or the Playstation get... they’ll never touch the 4-bit pleasures of the Atari!
     There have been many a Christmas since then, and I remember each one well, for all the little things they had with them.
     I’ll never forget Mom and Dad taking me and my sister to see Santa Claus at the mall in ‘84. That morning Dad asked if I’d come with him to cut firewood, so we rode the tractor into the woods. There had been snow earlier in the week, which lay around us in the crisp, cold morning.
     Dad also brought his 30-30 rifle, why I still don’t know. After we had the wood loaded, Dad asked if I wanted to try shootin’ the gun.
     There I was, a ten-year old kid, holding what looked like an anti-aircraft cannon in my tiny hands. Well, I aimed at this tree like Dad told me to, and pulled the trigger.
     To this day I cannot describe the colors that flashed before my eyes, or the sound in my ears. When my existence finally returned, I was flat on my back in the snow, and blood was gushing from between my eyes where the scope had hit my nose from the backfire.
     That night Santa saw the bandages and said “Ho ho hoooo, and what happened to you, little fellow?”
     “I got shot, Santa,” was the only thing I knew to say.
     Hey, was I gonna lie to the Big Man? Uh-uh, no way was I gonna lose all that loot!
     The following year’s Christmas I remember for many things, but especially feeding the young calves on our farm. It would be the last year our family would be running a dairy farm, and I had started helping with some of the work around the barn.
     Dad set up a Christmas tree in the milking room, with wrapped-up boxes beneath it.
     Tinsel hung from the front doors of the barn. And there was something about the feel of the place there, that has always held a special place in my heart, as if we knew that there would not be another Christmas like this one.
     I wish there had been another Christmas on the farm, because there’s something I wish I could have seen. And as silly as some people might find this, I really believe that it happens.
     You see, if you go out at midnight on Christmas Eve, you will see all the animals in the farmyard, and in the fields, and in the forests, and wherever else they may be, stop where they are.
     And then they kneel.
     They kneel in remembrance for another night, long ago. It was Christmas, but how many people could know it then?
     Nothing remarkable, to be sure: Caesar had decreed a census through the land, and each man went with his family to his town.
     One man in particular took his wife, a young woman quick with child. But there was no room for them at the inn. So that night, in a dirty and filthy stable and surrounded by animals, a child was born.
     You see, it’s easy for us to forget. At this time of the year, we are too overwhelmed by the consumption and the material and the glitter and all the customs that come with Christmas.
     And it’s too easy for us to forget that Christmas is, before everything else, a birthday.
     But the animals, who watched over Him as He lay as a newborn babe, two millenia ago... the animals have not forgotten.
     And so they kneel every Christmas and give glory to the newborn king, and in awe that God would send His Son to live among us in the greatest act of love.
     And to teach us many things, but especially to “love one another”. And to bridge the gap between man and God.
     The birth of Jesus Christ: the greatest Christmas present there will ever be. His birth, which would give mankind the greatest present it could ever ask for.
     Who in the world on that night could know the price that this present would someday have?
     Heaven and Earth sang praises to His glory on that night. The animals have always remembered that night. And Heaven and Earth still praise and sing unto Him.
     And if you only take a little time out from how busy things become at this part of the year, you can hear the singing, too. And it is a great temptation to join in that chorus.
     And perhaps in hearing, we will not forget the real meaning of Christmas, either.
     This Christmas Eve night I plan to be outside, with the same telescope that I got for Christmas all those years ago, and trying to envision a bright star over Bethlehem. Around midnight, I’m going to take a walk over to my aunt’s farm.
     Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth, and goodwill toward men.

Dedicated to the memory of W.C. “Mutt” Burton, for whom Christmas was always “In My Bones.”

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THE TICK's very special Christmas episode!

I will go to my grave believing that the Nineties gave us the best television animated series that have ever been produced.  Think about it: Tiny Toons, Gargoyles, X-Men... and of course Batman: The Animated Series, a show that forever raised the bar and redefined what cartoons were capable of.

But of all those shows and more, it's The Tick that holds the most special place in my heart from that era.

Based on Ben Edlund's underground comic book, The Tick premiered in 1994, ran for three seasons and stunned everyone with its unique style of superhero parody and screwball comedy.  The Tick was the one show I made a point to always watch on Saturday mornings (even if I worked late the previous night and was low on sleep).  It was such a big influence on me that when I finally got Internet access for the first time, the very first screen name I used was "The Man Eating Cow".

Anyway a lot of shows - including the animated ones - put on a Christmas-themed episode, and The Tick was no exception.  Of course, the one we got wasn't like those of other series.  So far as holiday episodes go, the only one that remotely approaches The Tick's entry is the "Turkeys Away" episode of W.K.R.P in Cincinnati.  It's just too whacked for words to adequately convey.

So without further ado, here from December 1995 is Tick fighting Multiple Santa in... "The Tick Loves Santa!":


"Ho Ho Ho, make them work! Ho Ho Ho, make them work!"

They just can't make humor like that anymore.

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One last photo from 2012 Holiday Season

Kristen and me on Christmas Day at her parents' house...

Despite everything she says, I still insist that she is far too sweet, fun and beautiful for a guy like me to be blessed with :-)

I am feeling led to say something here. That this Christmas was, for more reasons than I can possibly count, THE best Christmas that I have been able to enjoy in a very long, long time.

It was the first Christmas that I have had without Mom. In fact, it was a year ago today that we had her funeral. And in a lot of ways this was a trying and difficult year in other aspects as well.

But when I see the person I was a year ago, the time that I was going through then... and then now, how far God has brought me in that time, how He has blessed me more than I possibly deserve. And then how Kristen had promised that this was going to be a wonderful Christmas...

It was. It really was.

And Lord willing, next Christmas will be even better ;-)

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