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The Ghost of Christmas Past Philip V. Brennan Monday will be my 81st Christmas and for all I know, my last.
At this stage of life one tends to spend more time looking back, not surprisingly, because there's a lot more life behind me to reflect upon than there is ahead to anticipate. So it's not surprising that like Ebeneezer Scrooge, I can't help but to be haunted by the ghost of Christmas Past.
He is the gentlest of ghosts who carries a bag of the loveliest of memories. To people of my generation there was a magic about this annual celebration nobody in later generations can understand or appreciate.
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Christmas was above all a religious celebration — the Christ child in his manger, and not Santa in his sleigh, was the centerpiece. Christmas was an opportunity to reflect on the mystical, to put aside for the moment the things of temporal world for a brief excursion into the eternal existence that awaits those who love Him.
In my family, Christmas meant midnight mass — a tridentine solemn high liturgy sung in Gregorian chant with all the mystery and beauty that elevated the mind and spirit, allowing us to enter into the outer reaches of the Kingdom he came to establish 2000 years ago.
We came to worship, to kneel at His crib and experience the ecstasy of being in his presence. It was other-worldly — meant to allow us to be absorbed into a dimension not of this world.
It meant coming home around 2:00 a.m. to what began as a family breakfast, with the opening of presents, and as we grew older, became a party involving a host of friends and relatives (it was my wise mother's scheme to keep us from going out in the wee hours and committing all sorts of mischief — it didn't always work.)
Later in the day, it meant going to Grandmother Brennan's for a gathering of the clan: uncles, aunts, cousins by the dozen — a sweet lesson in what a blessing living in the bosom of a large family that remains close and united can be.
There was of course a certain amount of commercialism. After all, Christmas involved gift giving and gifts needed to be purchased and there were lots of establishments only too happy to vend them. But gifts were simply a part of the celebration, not the sole reason for it.
Christmas was not overwhelmed by Macy's. It was the other way around.
Presents were modest expressions of our love for each other, not a means to buy each other's gratitude. There was one gift from my parents — in my case perhaps a new railway car to add to my train set — whatever small items stuffed in a stocking, and the presents from uncles aunts and my grandmother, more often than not a small check.
Whatever we got, we appreciated. Christmas was not about loot. Nowadays, such a small array of gifts for the kiddies would spark a family rebellion — thrifty parents would be charged with child abuse.
Christmas was celebrated universally.
It was in every sense a national holiday. Everybody exclaimed to everybody else, "Merry Christmas!" and nobody but the meanest of Scrooges took offense; and if they did, there weren't any judges or an ACLU around to encourage them in their self-imposed misery.
Christmas decorations went up Christmas Eve, and came down after New Year's day. Thanksgiving was the beginning of the season; New Year's its end.
Christmas was the premier event of the year. It stood above all other celebratory occasions simply because it marked an event that transformed the world and opened the gates of Heaven to the likes of us.
Christmas was the occasion when we joined together and expressed our gratitude to our Lord and shared our joy over His gifts with our loved ones. It was a one-day time-out period from all the cares and worries and problems of everyday life — a day when together our attention turned to things above the mundane — matters of the spirit.
I regret that the present generation can't have what we had, and pray that on Dec. 25 all will find at least a small part of what they are missing and need so desperately in these tumultuous and nihilistic times.
In that sense I wish you all a merry and the most blessed of Christmases.
Pax Dominus Vobiscum
Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor and publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s.
He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers. He can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com.
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