Christmas Musing: Why I Write

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It is early on Christmas morning, and I am awake, but it isn't like it was when I was a kid. I'm not up because I want to find out what is under the tree. I have no tree in my apartment.

Actually, I am up because I have had a touch of some sort of virus lately that has me congested, unable to breathe. So I am awake before sunrise on Christmas morning, like when I was a boy — although, clearly, not for the same reason.

It is cold and clear this morning. The forecasters have said it will be warmer today (but very windy), which would make it one of the milder Christmases I have experienced in Dallas. I didn't grow up here, but I spent most of my Christmases here visiting my grandparents and my parents' old friends, and I have spent most of the Christmases of my adult years here, too.

That doesn't make me an authority on Christmas in Dallas, but it's close! And, more often than not, Christmas in Dallas is cool — even cold at times. I remember a few warm ones when I was growing up, Christmases when my brother and I could go outside and play in shorts and T–shirts. We could climb the pecan trees in my grandmother's yard unencumbered by winter coats.

A couple of times when I was growing up, my family drove to South Padre Island near the U.S.–Mexico border to spend Christmas there, and it was always nice and warm (today, for example, the temperature is supposed to be 71° in Brownsville, close to 80° tomorrow and Saturday).

Anyway, this morning I have been listening to Mannheim Steamroller. I don't know how long they've been putting out Christmas albums — decades, I suppose — but I have one that came out nearly 20 years ago. It is the only purely Christmas album in my collection. I have Christmas songs that various artists have recorded, but they are always part of more general albums.

I remember when I got this album. It was about six months after my mother was killed in a flash flood. I was teaching journalism in Oklahoma and commuting to Dallas on weekends to see about my father. On one of my weekend trips, I heard "Pat a Pan" on the car radio and decided I had to have it. It has been in my collection ever since.

Listening to it really can be an exercise in free association. When I hear it, I think of those days after my mother died, and then I think about her (although I am sure that she never heard this album) — and that leads me to thoughts of my childhood. Mom was my biggest booster, and I am sure she must have encouraged me to take the path I took in life — writing. I have worked at other kinds of jobs, but writing has always been at the core of who I am.

It is a path that has led me to the job I have today as editorial manager for a stock–trading oriented website. I am very happy to have that job on Christmas 2014. Of course, I guess an argument can be made that, after slogging my way through the last six years following the economic implosion, I would be very happy to have any job. And I suppose there is an element of that. But the truth is that I like the people with whom and for whom I work.

Not everyone can say that, and I really am thankful for my job. It allows me to write for a living. I know some professional writers who fret about a lot of things, including writer's block, and writing becomes work for them.

Not me. Writing has always been fun for me. When I have some spare time, I would just about always prefer to write about something. I write three blogs (one of which is this one) so I always have an outlet for any inspiration I may have.

That's what it is. Inspiration. That must have been what my mother encouraged in me when I was little. Mom was about creativity, which has a symbiotic relationship with inspiration. She taught first grade, and I think most of the people who came through her classroom and their parents would tell you she was the most creative teacher they ever knew.

After she died, my family received hundreds of letters from old friends scattered across the country, a few even halfway around the world. One friend who knew her when she was a teenager sent us a letter with some photos of Mom participating in a play in junior high or high school. In the photos, she was clearly hamming it up in her usual way, and the friend remarked in his letter, "I always thought that, if Mary had not gone into teaching, she would have gravitated to the stage."

A career on the stage might have satisfied her yearning for creative outlets. She found other outlets, one of which was encouraging me to write. I had other influences along the way, but I am quite sure she was my earliest. When I was in elementary school, she arranged for me to take piano lessons, which I did for many years. I haven't kept up with it, but all that practice made my fingers quite nimble, and I am sure it contributed to my typing ability, which has been valuable to me all these years. I have certainly found it to be an advantage since personal computers took over the workplace. Many of my colleagues still hunt and peck, but I took typing in junior high and I already had the advantage of several years of piano lessons under my belt.

Of course, typing alone is not the same as writing. Simply stringing words together in grammatically correct sentences is not the same as writing unless you explore related ideas and themes. That is something I have worked on for years, and I really think it has paid off. I have people who read my blogs all over the world. Some sign up as followers who are notified whenever I post something new; others just pop in from time to time to catch up on what I've written.

Occasionally, they write to me. One wrote, "I can't wait to see what you will write about next."

I suppose that sums up how I feel about writing. I often know what I want to write about; I just don't know what I will say about it until I sit down and write.

That is the pleasure I get from writing — discovering what I think or how I feel as a result of writing about it. Sometimes I honestly do not know how I feel about something until I start writing about it. Sometimes, I am as surprised as my readers at what I think.

And it is appropriate to think about that on Christmas — because that is a gift my mother gave me.

Thanks, Mom.

When Christmas Wishes Come True

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I woke early on Christmas morning, perhaps an hour or so before sunrise.

I don't know why I have fallen into this pattern of rising early, but it has been that way of late. It is the only reason why I would be up before dawn on Christmas. I am no longer a child, eager to unwrap my Christmas gifts. I am an adult, living alone. There were no gifts under the tree for me to unwrap. Fact is, there was no tree.

But I was up, and it was Christmas, and that was cause for a little reflection. Good as any, I suppose.

I grew up in Arkansas, but I've spent most of the Christmases of my life here in Dallas. There have been a few exceptions but not many. My parents were born and raised here, and my grandparents lived here when I was a child. My father was a college professor, which meant he was off from his job at roughly the same time my brother and I were off from school so it made sense for the whole family to pack up and head for Dallas and an extended holiday with the grands (grandmothers, mostly — both of my grandfathers were deceased before I turned 10).

A few of the exceptions I mentioned were when I was about 10 or 11 years old. We drove to Dallas on those occasions, too, but we had our family Christmas a couple of days ahead of the actual day, then drove to South Padre Island at the southern tip of Texas where we spent three or four days soaking up the south Texas sun and playing on the beach.

One or two adults traveling in an average vehicle probably could make that trip in eight or nine hours, stopping only for gas, the occasional bathroom break and perhaps a takeout burger. But we were a family of four with two dogs and one of those popup camper/trailer rigs hitched to the car. We frequently stopped along the way, my parents concluded that stopping for sit–down meals rather than takeout was best (it wasn't as potentially messy even though it took longer), and we couldn't really build up a high rate of speed when we were on the road so it usually took us 11 or 12 hours to reach our destination.

For a variety of reasons, we only made this trip about three times. As I recall, the last time we went down there, we arrived in brilliant sunshine and were in high spirits after putting up the camper and preparing to bed down for the night. During the night, though, a heavy rainstorm moved into the area and pounded the area for a couple of days. Finally, my parents decided enough was enough, and we packed up the trailer in the rain and made a beeline for my maternal grandmother's home. As we were making that long drive, we heard the radio report that the storm was the heaviest to strike the area in decades, perhaps a century.

We also heard there were reports of recreational boats lost at sea. That was the last time my family made a trip to South Padre Island.

But I recall that, just before we made our first or second trip to south Texas, I received probably the best Christmas present of my young life — an electric football set. (Actually, it may be better than any Christmas gift I have received since.)

I already had an electric football set. I had wanted one ever since a neighbor and playmate got one a few years earlier, and my parents had given me one, but his was better. It was like the picture shown above, with the players wearing genuine pro football uniforms and helmets, and there was a scoreboard with what appeared to be crowds of fans in the stands.

By comparison, my set was rather bare bones.

My set had no such detail. The players for one team were all red, from their heads to their feet, and the players for the other team were blue, from their heads to their feet. My friend's set looked like it had inch–tall football players, football cards come to life (I was an avid football card collector in those days); mine looked like two teams of plastic figures, no different from the mass–produced plastic green soldiers I played with when I was younger.

There was no scoreboard, either. Well, actually, I think there was something that was supposed to be like a scoreboard, but it was all so generic. My friend's set came with two teams — it was possible to order additional teams, in their home and/or road uniforms —and it had punch–out team names so it was possible to change the name of the team(s) on the scoreboard, too.

When the teams were mailed, the company included tiny sets of numbers that the recipient could apply to the players if desired.

A couple of my playmates had a brother who was about six years older than us, and he had a whole collection of those NFL teams, in their home and away uniforms, on display in his bedroom. He had put numbers on all the players — and not randomly, either. The numbers corresponded with the players who played for the teams.

I remember looking at them from time to time with a sense of awe and wonder.

Looking back on it, there was nothing wrong with the first electric football set I got. It's just that the other was so much better in my eyes. I dutifully played with the first set for a couple of years, but I never got over wanting the one with the authentic–looking players and the scoreboard.

And, when I was about 10 or 11, I finally got it for Christmas.

The teams weren't the hot teams of the day — although they did considerably better in later years — but they looked authentic.

They weren't just red and blue figures.

I think I will always remember that adrenaline rush I felt on Christmas morning (we actually stayed at my grandmother's house for Christmas before embarking on our journey to south Texas that year) when I unwrapped the electric football set. But alas! I couldn't enjoy playing with it yet. The family had to pack up the car for an early departure for South Padre Island that next morning, and most of the Christmas gifts (including my electric football set) had to stay behind.

So, for the next three days, I could only fantasize about playing with my electric football set. For a 10– or 11–year–old boy, it was sheer agony. I thought about that football set while I played on the beach during the day, then I dreamed about it at night.

I don't know if the reality ever lived up to the fantasy, but I know I played with that set for a few years before I tired of it.

A Close Call

Ordinarily, the American public doesn't know how a president perceives the decisions he must make while he is still in office.

There are, after all, so many decisions a president must make during his term. Seems like the destinies of most presidents, in the words of Forrest Gump, float on a breeze — and not a gentle one at that. They kind of go from one decision to the next without spending too much time (if any) reflecting on one that has already been made. By that time, there are already half a dozen more matters that need the president's immediate attention.

You usually have to wait until a president leaves office, catches his breath and writes his memoirs before you learn which decisions were the most gut–wrenching ones he had to make. They're usually pretty predictable, too — where (and whether) to put American troops in harm's way, which programs to support financially, etc.

Decisions that require courage, that call for the wisdom of Solomon.

Last week, Amie Parnes of The Hill offered Americans a rare glimpse into the mindset of a president — well, of this particular president — and it wasn't for all three years of his presidency, just the current "holiday season." Still, I rather doubt that it will be the subject of a political science lecture, though.

"The toughest call for the president this holiday season," wrote Parnes, "could be whether to join his family for Christmas in Hawaii or stay in lonely Washington."

Parnes conceded that "there's no ideal time for a presidential vacation," which is certainly true. I cannot remember a president who was not criticized for taking a little time away from the Oval Office (Harry Truman once called it the "crown jewel of the federal penal system"), but "this one comes at a particularly inopportune moment."

Yes, I guess you could say that. Obama was already requiring Congress to remain in Washington until an agreement was reached on the payroll tax cut extension. It wouldn't have looked very good if he had taken a "do as I say, not as I do" approach to the matter and skipped town to spend Christmas on the beaches of Hawaii.

Fortunately for Obama, the intransigent House Republicans gave in (no real reason why they shouldn't; as Obama observed, legislators in both parties favored the extension), the president signed the bill into law and got to Hawaii in time to spend the holiday with the wife and kids in their beach house.

While he was in Hawaii, the president also mixed some business with pleasure, attending Christmas services on a Marine base.

Whew! Crisis averted.

Of course, for millions of Americans, holiday travel wasn't an issue. They have no jobs — or, at least, no full–time ones — and, without that, it makes holiday travel something of a moot point.

Has the same effect on the payroll tax cut, too, for that matter.

The Music of Christmas

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It is early on Christmas morning.

My bedroom window faces west so I won't be able to see when the sun starts to peek out over the eastern horizon, but that hasn't begun yet. It is still dark in Dallas, Texas, where I have spent so many Christmas mornings in my life.

And I am thinking about the music I associate with Christmas. It isn't always what you might think. Sure, there are the usual associations with seasonal songs and grade–school shows, but there are other, more personal memories of music and Christmas that are on my mind.

Sorting out those memories seems to be the order of business for me this morning. Perhaps it points the way to inner peace, which seems to be a worthy goal on Christmas.

I can get just as misty as the next person when I hear certain traditional songs that bring back memories of Christmases past and friends and relatives who have been gone for many years.

It always astonishes me how empty you can feel when you can't celebrate a holiday like Christmas the way you always did, how much you miss what was and will never be again — and how helpless, how powerless you feel when things change that you didn't want to change.

Change is inevitable, of course. And I guess I'm feeling particularly vulnerable to it this year. Seems like a lot of people who were important in my life have died this year, more than usual. Yes, I know that happens with more frequency as we get older, but it still leaves me with an empty feeling.

Change need not be a bad thing. I've been without a full–time job for more than two years now, and I guess I have been a little impatient waiting for the next chapter in my life to begin. As far as I'm concerned, that's one change that has been too long in coming.

Still, though, I can understand the resistance to change.

I grew up in Arkansas, but my grandparents and most of my parents' closest friends always lived right here in Dallas. My father was a college professor so he had time off at Christmas and we usually came to Dallas to spend the holidays.

I guess Christmas is always a magical time for children, but it was an especially magical time for me, and coming to my grandparents' home was always magical.

There were times when — for reasons I have forgotten or never knew — we didn't leave for Dallas until Christmas morning. In those days, we would have our family Christmas, then we would load up the car with our belongings and the gifts for the grandparents and friends and depart on the drive to Dallas, which usually took about seven hours in those pre–interstate days.

My memories of Christmas morning in those days are of waking up early and remaining in bed, impatiently waiting for the rest of the family to get up.

Like most children, I guess, I anticipated the presents that Christmas morning would bring, but I was excited, too, by the idea of simply being in Dallas later that day, in my grandparents' home. That was always an adventure for me, and there were always things to look forward to — the brownies in my grandmother's cookie jar, the softness of the beds in her home, trips to the park on pleasant days (and there were many of them in Dallas at Christmas when I was growing up), the familiar sights and sounds that I always associated with Dallas, whether it was Christmas or the Fourth of July.

When I think of music and Christmas morning, I can't help remembering a Christmas when I was still small. How small? I don't know. It's a vague memory, but I was young enough that I was still crawling into my parents' bed in the predawn hours and snuggling next to my mother. I guess I was 4 or 5.

On that particular Christmas Eve, my father set the alarm clock so we would all get up early enough to pack the car and get on the road, but he set it on radio and not alarm so, when the appointed time arrived, we were awakened to the sound of Christmas music playing on the radio.

The three of us lay there in the dark for several minutes, listening to the music before we got out of bed and began getting ready for the trip. I can't recall the tunes that were played — I think "Oh, Tannenbaum" was one of them, but that may be the intrusion of another memory because that was one of Mom's favorites.

Most of the time when I was growing up, we were in Dallas several days before Christmas.

But I still found myself waking before sunrise and waiting for the others to get up.

I remember a Christmas one year in the 1970s. I had gotten a portable radio for my birthday the month before, and I lay in bed listening to that radio via the earphone that came with it.

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It was very dark in the bedroom, the way it is now, not even the faintest traces of dawn's earliest light could be seen peeking through the curtains, and I remember hearing, for the very first time, the song "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers. I think it had been released maybe a month before, but I hadn't heard it.

If I had heard it, I'm sure I would have remembered it. I was a Doobie Brothers fan in those days, and the song, with its bluegrass and Cajun influences, was so different from anything they had recorded before.

And yet I found it oddly familiar — and appealing.

Its message had little, if anything, to do with Christmas, but it had special relevance for me. After Christmas, my family planned to drive to New Orleans for a few days. We would be in the heart of Cajun country, where we probably would hear music that was similar to that — and, in fact, we did.

I remember humming that song all that Christmas morning while we did our family Christmas thing, then when we bundled up and drove to the retirement home where my father's mother was living. I didn't hum "Black Water" as we walked through the rather bland, antiseptic halls to my grandmother's room, but the song was playing on an endless loop in my head.

Not exactly "White Christmas," but, even today, when I hear "Black Water," I remember that Christmas morning.

Christmas always reminds me, too, of my mother, as I have written here before. It has never come close to being the same for me since she died.

I've been thinking of one Christmas in particular. I couldn't say what year it was, but it was when I was still living in Little Rock and vinyl LPs were still being sold so it must have been in the 1980s.

One of my closest friends was working as a clerk in a record store, and I told him I was looking for a record to give Mom for Christmas.

Mom was always very musical, and she was fond of performers like Simon and Garfunkel, Don McLean, John Denver, but I wanted to get her something I didn't think she had heard.

My friend suggested a collection of winter–oriented instrumental classical music from Windham Hill that featured a variety of artists like George Winston. I went by the store one night when he was there, and he played some of the album for me. I was impressed and bought it on the spot.

On Christmas morning, I remember sitting on the floor next to Mom when she opened my gift. She wanted to hear it right away, and it provided the perfect backdrop for a family Christmas. For the rest of her life, Mom frequently played that album on Christmas.

Christmas truly was Mom's time of year, just as it was for an old friend of mine, Phyllis, who died earlier this year. I don't think Phyllis and I ever spent a Christmas together, but we did see each other during the holidays.

And I always knew, even if I didn't see first hand, how much Christmas meant to her.

So this year especially, my thoughts are of Phyllis. And, indirectly, that, too, reminds me of some music that makes me think of Christmas.

Phyllis, as I have mentioned before, was a dedicated Christian. She changed Protestant denominations during her life, but, as far as I know, she always believed in God and Jesus.

She was also a talented musician. She loved all kinds of music. Well, I don't know how she felt about rap, but I think she liked just about every other kind of music.

About a year or two before we met, a rock opera called "Jesus Christ Superstar" was doing something that organized religion was failing to do — bring young people into the flock.

Phyllis and I never discussed "Jesus Christ Superstar." But I think she approved of any music that inspired people to seek God.

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Anyway, I remember one Christmas when my parents gave me a small package, small enough to fit in my hand. When I opened it, it turned out to be a homemade cassette recording of "Jesus Christ Superstar."

My father was a religion professor at a small liberal arts college in my hometown. As I recall, there was one copy of "Jesus Christ Superstar," a two–record set packaged in a special box (rare for that time) with a libretto, in the library at the college where he taught — or perhaps it was at the church where we were members.

Whichever it was, my father arranged to borrow it and recorded it when the technology for doing so was primitive, to say the least. The record he used as his source was scratchy, and it yielded a copy that was far from perfect. But I treasured that tape and listened to it endlessly until it finally gave out.

And even today, when I hear a song from that original recording, I remember that Christmas morning, whenever it was, and I listened for the first time to that tape my father made for me.

OK, my musical Christmas memories aren't exactly "White Christmas" or "Jingle Bells."

But they're mine, and I treasure them.

If you have a few minutes to spare on this Christmas Day, I'd like to hear about your Christmas memories — musical or not.

The Question of the Season

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"Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus."

Francis Church
Editorial writer, New York Sun
Sept. 21, 1897

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Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reprinted the famous 19th–century editorial that answered 8–year–old Virginia O'Hanlon's plaintive question, "Is there a Santa Claus?"

The newspaper is hardly the first to reprint the editorial. It is simply continuing a long tradition. It is the most reprinted English language editorial of all time, especially at this time of the year.

The original editorial was published in the old New York Sun. It was written by a fellow named Francis Church.

Most people think it was published on Christmas Eve — or, at least, during the Christmas season. In fact, it was published on Sept. 21, 1897.

Most people also think the headline for that editorial was "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." And the Journal Sentinel did its part to perpetuate that myth yesterday when it ran its reprint under the headline "Yes, Virginia ..."

Whenever one sees those two words, I guess it is understood that the famous editorial — or a discussion about it — will follow.

But, in reality, that was part of the reply to young Virginia's letter to the editor.

The actual headline was not nearly as certain as that. In fact, it wasn't assertive at all. It was a question, which was appropriate, I think. It reflected the skepticism, no matter how small it may be or how great the faith of the person involved, that what one has been told is the truth.

"Is There a Santa Claus?" it asked. Yep, it repeated the very same question young Virginia asked in her letter. But it did more than just answer a question with the same question.

Church could have proceeded to repeat the same old tales parents have been telling their children about Santa Claus for decades — well, at least since "The Night Before Christmas" was published in 1823.

But, instead, he seized the opportunity to explore the philosophical issues the brief letter raised.

Church's reply was brief as well, but he managed to address the question of the existence of things unseen.

Santa Claus, he assured Virginia, "exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

"Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus," he continued. "It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished."

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the more cynical elements of the Christmas season would, at some point, hijack the simplicity of Virginia's question and the elegance of the editorial reply and use "Yes, Virginia" to lure shoppers to the stores, as Macy's did this year in its Christmas campaign encouraging children to write "Yes Virginia Santa Letters."

In 2008 and 2009, Macy's utilized the editorial in its holiday commercials, featuring folks like Jessica Simpson, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart and Queen Latifah reading famous lines from it.

A few years back, Lord & Taylor used "Yes, Virginia" as the theme for its store windows in Manhattan.

And, like any really good piece of writing, the editorial has been lampooned and used as the basis for jokes.

I guess my favorite was in 2001. The Detroit Lions finally won a football game after losing their first 12. Jay Leno, who had been joking about the Lions' losing ways all season, said in his monologue, "There was a new Christmas movie released this weekend. It was called, 'Yes, Detroit, There Is An End Zone.' "

I recall an interesting play on the line when I was a child and Apollo 8 orbited the moon on Christmas Eve.

Upon re–establishing radio contact with mission control in Houston, astronaut Jim Lovell said, "Please be informed there is a Santa Claus."

The reply from Houston was, "You're the best ones to know."

"Yes, Virginia" has become a cliche. For some, it is a marketing tool. For Virginia O'Hanlon, it was a sincere question.

Some people know how to answer that question better than others. And Virginia might have been more reassured if she heard there was a Santa from an astronaut than from an editorial writer. But there were no astronauts when she was a child. In fact, there were barely astronauts at the end of her life. She died almost two years after Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

So I guess the most authoritative source she could find in the late 19th century was an editor for the New York Sun. The Sun was clearly held in high esteem in her household. After all, she said in her letter, "Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.' "

The Sun may have told her more than she asked for, but its answer has been repeated frequently to generations of children who have sought the same answer Virginia did.

I expect that continue, as it has for the last 113 years.

A Christmas Mystery

Here's a real–life Christmas mystery for you to ponder.

Don't feel bad if you can't solve it. It's been around for nearly two centuries.

Anyway, I'm sure you're familiar with "The Night Before Christmas."

You know the poem I'm talking about — the one that begins "Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house/Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ..."

Yeah, I knew you were familiar with it.

Well, anyway, it was published anonymously 187 years ago today in the Sentinel of Troy, N.Y. And it is given credit for just about everything that is believed by children about Santa Claus — how he looks, how many reindeer he has and what their names are, the notion that he uses a sleigh to make his Christmas Eve deliveries, the idea that he leaves presents for children all over the world.

For a long time, the poem was reprinted with no author's name mentioned. Then, a scholar and professor of first Oriental and Greek literature and then Biblical studies named Clement Clarke Moore acknowledged authorship.

He claimed to have written it for his children and had wished to remain anonymous because of his position, but he was persuaded by his children to come forward so it could be included in an anthology of his works that was published more than two decades after the poem appeared in the Sentinel.

And, for more than a century, it was generally accepted that Moore was the author.

But then, along came English professor Donald Foster, a pioneer in the field of content analysis. What is content analysis, you may ask? Well, it is a methodology for studying the content of communication. In Foster's case, he has specialized in studying texts to determine whether they were authentic. At times, his skills have been used in criminal investigations.

Foster first came to public attention in the late 1980s, when he explored the mystery of the dedication of Shakespeare's sonnets. While he was involved in that research, Foster came across what he believed to be a previously unknown work by Shakespeare. Opinion among scholars has been mixed.

So, too, has been the response to his assertion that a writer named Henry Livingston Jr. actually wrote "The Night Before Christmas." Foster apparently was persuaded to join a movement by Livingston's descendants to have him recognized as the poem's author.

That hasn't happened yet. There is still considerable dispute over the authorship.

Which man wrote the poem? Well, here is what is known.

In 1837, 14 years after the poem was first published, the Pennsylvania Inquirer and Daily Courier credited Moore. Its source was one of Moore's friends.

Scholars (including Foster) have pointed out that the style and phrasing used in the poem resembles other works by Livingston.

However, it has been argued that Foster focused only on the passages from the poem that conformed to his theory, and that many of Moore's works also are similar in style and phrasing to the poem.

So who's right? Who wrote the poem?

Well, in the words of ... er, whoever ... Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Merry Christmas

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It is Christmas morning.

And I know you've got things to do and people to visit so I'll just wish you a Merry Christmas — and give you this little gift.

This won't take long. I only ask a few minutes of your time. And then you can be about your business.

I think the true power of Christmas is that, no matter what your circumstances may be, no matter how hopeless or alone you may feel, you don't have to do anything special to find Christmas. You do not have to go out of your way to find it. It finds you.

You can even try to hide from it. It will still find you.

Sadly, such a feeling is fleeting. The hope and joy we feel on Christmas morning may well be gone tomorrow.

I don't know if there is any truth to any of the stories I heard about Christmas when I was a boy. Maybe most are tall tales — like the one about Santa Claus traveling all the way around the world on Christmas Eve — that we stop believing at some point as we get older.

As a child, I remember being told that animals can speak at midnight on Christmas Eve. One year, I resolved to put it to the test. I got up out of bed shortly before midnight and found the family dog sleeping in the living room. I woke her, and I waited with her until long after midnight. She was a patient, faithful companion, and she licked me on the cheek several times that evening. But she never said a word to me. I concluded the story wasn't true.

On the face of it, the story of Jesus' birth seems almost as preposterous. I remember when I was about 6 or 7, and my Sunday school class was talking about Jesus' birth — and the three wise men and the angels singing and the star shining on the manger and all that. And I remember asking myself, How did Mary and Joseph sleep with the angels singing and the light from the star shining on them all night?

Well, Christmas has survived two millennia in spite of such mysteries. And it brings with it a special feeling, but it is a feeling that doesn't seem to last beyond the opening of the gifts and the consuming of Christmas dinner.

Have you ever seen someone who dodged a bullet — survived some sort of accident or disaster that should have been fatal or was clinically dead and then was revived? Many go through periods during which they savor the flavor of every grain of salt or the sight of the rich hues of every sunrise and sunset. They overcompensate for taking things for granted. Never before had life been as precious to them, but, eventually, their intensity wanes and they go back to taking things for granted.

That is the only comparison that comes to mind.

I guess people can get into the "Christmas spirit" for awhile, but most cannot sustain it the whole year. For many folks, it seems to be enough of a challenge to maintain the feeling until Christmas itself. And that is understandable. It is a lofty feeling. It takes a lot of effort to maintain that altitude.

Some people would say that "effort" is really faith misnamed. And that, I suppose, is an entirely different discussion. It seems to me that "effort" may not have much to do with what you actually believe, but rather with something you want others to think you believe. "Faith," on the other hand, has to do with something you accept without hesitation. It is a part of you, as natural as breathing. It requires no special effort.

Faith can be a hard thing to hold on to in these turbulent times. But, while we have that feeling on this Christmas morning, I want to share some music that is adequate to the moment. I wanted to find voices that were majestic enough to express it, and I honestly think Luciano Pavarotti and Trisha Yearwood give fresh life to a tune I'm sure you've heard dozens of times this year alone.

Anyway, pretend you're hearing this for the first time.

And you will believe, if only for a minute, that redemption is possible. That is the real power of Christmas.

To my friends, old and new, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and I pray the new year brings us all reason to believe again in hope and joy that lasts longer than a single day.

Soon It Will Be Christmas Eve

Next week is Christmas Eve.

In households all over America — indeed, all over the world — there will be a certain excitement in the air. I remember that feeling. I often long for it. But it has left my life, probably forever.

You know, it's true what they say about Christmas. It has become the very definition of commercialism. And it's also true that the Christmas hype gets started earlier every year. Perhaps this has something to do with the economy, but I think a lot of it is just plain old–fashioned greed because I've seen the same thing happening during boom times.

Well, I don't want to rant about Christmas commercialism the week before Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Actually, what I'm going to write about today is my mother. She died in a flash flood in 1995.

I worked as a newspaper copy editor for many years. Among other things, it was my job to whittle down stories to make them fit the allotted space, and there were all sorts of ways to do that. Sometimes you might find a good synonym or a way to say in one word what originally called for three or four. But I don't think I could describe my mother in a single word.

I guess most people would say this about their mothers, but my mother had many talents. She was a first–grade teacher during much of her adult life, and I have long believed that it takes someone with special skills to captivate the imaginations of a room filled with 6–year–olds every day of every week for nine months. Mom did it well enough that she was recognized by others for her work.

After she died, we received many letters of condolence. One came from someone who knew Mom when she was a young girl but had been absent from her life when I was growing up so I wasn't familiar with him, but my father was. His letter included a couple of pictures of Mom as a teenager, hamming it up for the camera on a stage, and he shared his thoughts about her flair for the dramatic. He wrote that he believed Mom became a first–grade teacher because she couldn't be an actress.

Maybe that's so. I never asked Mom why she became a teacher. Maybe I should have. But maybe I didn't because the answer was always all around me. It was one of those questions that didn't need to be asked.

Mom didn't teach when my brother and I were small. She focused her attention on her home and family, and it was in the role of wife/mother/homemaker that she found ways to express her flair for the dramatic.

She always liked to decorate the house for the season. When I was about to turn 5 and my brother was not yet 2, we moved into the first home my parents owned. Christmas came along a couple of months later, and my mother's parents visited us in central Arkansas for the occasion. The picture at the left was taken during that visit.

In the years to come, we visited them in Dallas, sometimes waiting until Christmas Day before loading up the car and hitting the road. (That reminds me of a Christmas when our departure for Dallas was delayed because my brother and I had received Hot Wheels cars and a Hot Wheels track, and we wanted to play with them before we had to pack up the car and leave them behind for a week or so.)

I can't say that I remember that Christmas very well, but we sure look like we had a good time at Christmas dinner.

She always enjoyed having nativity scenes around the house. I remember the one in the picture at the right, but Mom preferred the ones with actual figurines, not the printed figures on cardboard backing or carved shapes. When my brother and I were in elementary school, Mom found a nativity scene in which the figure of the baby could be removed from the bed, and she would leave the bed empty through most of the Christmas season. Then, on Christmas morning, she would insist that the whole family go to the nativity scene to see "if Jesus had been born during the night" before proceeding to our stockings and the gifts under the tree.

Once we had confirmed that Jesus had, indeed, been born, the real festivities — as far as my brother and I were concerned — began. But Mom saw to it that the day started with an acknowledgement of what the day was supposed to be about — even if the emphasis rather rapidly turned to the toys and other goodies in our stockings and the packages.

You know how "B.F.F." is used as shorthand these days for "best friend forever?" Instantly recognizing what that stands for isn't automatic for me. I always have to stop and think about it because I have a different phrase in mind when I say "B.F.F." For me, it refers to my life "before [the] flash flood." The difference has been that profound — certainly as far as Christmas is concerned.

My family almost always spent the Christmas Eves "B.F.F." in the house in which my mother grew up. My grandmother continued to live there after my grandfather died, then my parents moved into the house and stayed there until my mother died.

On Christmas Eve, Mom tended to sleep later than anyone else in the family, then she would enter the living room where the rest of us were watching TV or reading the paper, and, with no prompting from anyone (with the exception, perhaps, of a "Good morning" greeting from someone), she would begin to recite a monologue she had committed to memory many years earlier from a Robin Hood record. In her childhood, she and her friends memorized the record and acted out the scenes that were described in it — and this particular monologue began, "It is Christmas Eve ..."

So, today, when I hear someone say, "It is Christmas Eve," I flash back to those Christmas Eve mornings in my grandparents' home. And I wish I could hear her say it one more time. Never fails.

Mom's flair for the dramatic always seemed to be on display at this time of the year. She stopped doing the nativity scene routine when my brother and I got older, but in the last Christmases of her life, she found a mechanical Rudolph the Red–Nosed Reindeer that, when properly equipped with batteries, would "walk" while nodding its head up and down.

Mom would treat Rudolph like a Magic 8–Ball, asking, "Are we going to have a good Christmas?" and then flicking his switch, prompting Rudolph's affirming nod.

Rudolph was always right. Maybe that was because the family was together.

We didn't really have Santa Claus in my home. We had Père Noël. And he wasn't played by my father. He was played by my mother.

She had a long flowing red robe that she would put on with a fake white beard, and she was transformed into "Père Noël," speaking — and even laughing — in an exaggerated Inspector Clouseauesque French accent.

I guess that wasn't too surprising. Mom loved the "Pink Panther" movies. No matter how many times she saw Peter Sellers play the bumbling French detective, it made her laugh. I often felt that she played Père Noël primarily to make the rest of us laugh, and she succeeded.

Eventually, Père Noël branched out, making holiday appearances at Mom's school. But the act had been perfected on my father, my brother and me.

It's hard to believe, but this will be my 15th Christmas without Mom — or Rudolph or Père Noël. In hindsight, I guess I should have been preparing myself for the inevitable. But even though I knew that no one lives forever, I never gave any thought to what my life would be like when my parents were gone. And then, when it happened, I was unprepared.

So my Yuletide advice to you, dear reader, is this: Be thankful for the people in your life while you have them. They can be taken from you without notice.

The Day After Christmas

It almost seems traditional for people to reflect on some of the lesser-known attributes of the Christmas season the day after the big day.

In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd observes that "When consumerism curdles, it’s tempting to become an emotional Marxist about Christmas. Not Karl. Groucho."

When Groucho Marx and Christmas are mentioned in the same breath, you know you're in for something.

Actually, it was kind of a sneaky way to work in Caroline Kennedy's book, "A Family Christmas," a collection of all sorts of holiday stories, poems, songs, etc., into the column.

Ms. Kennedy says the book continued her mother's holiday tradition. Jackie Kennedy wrote holiday poems for her mother, and Ms. Kennedy and her brother wrote holiday poems for Jackie.

Dowd remarks that she found a 1953 letter from Groucho to Fred Allen in Kennedy's book, and she goes on to speculate that just about everyone would have a holiday tale to contribute to the book.

Her story, Dowd said, would be about Trigger, "one of those wooden horses that bounced on springs." It was a gift she received as a little girl, one that she clearly treasured.

But one day, Dowd says, she awoke to find the horse was gone. Her mother, who experienced the loss of her father at the age of 12, had been touched by the sight of a young boy who "stared longingly at the horse" when he and his mother passed the house. Dowd's mother gave the horse to the child.

It took several years for Dowd to learn what her mother's generous gesture really meant.

"Her lesson was lovely: that materialism and narcissism can only smother life -- and Christmas -- if you let them," Dowd writes.

It's a lesson we would do well to remember, even if Christmas has come and gone.

The Candidates' Christmas Ads

Along with the usual Christmas commercials for products and services, this year we have seen commercials for presidential candidates with Christmas/holiday themes.

Ads by Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama have been on the airwaves, and political strategist Dick Morris took some time to discuss the ads on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" recently.

Of the Clinton ad, Morris says it was a "terrible" ad, in which Clinton was surrounded by gift packages, each bearing a tag that mentioned a specific issue, like "Bring the Troops Home," "Universal Health Care" and "Middle Class Tax Breaks."

But Clinton's ad was more generic than the others, referring only to the "holiday season" and making no specific mention of Christmas, for which Clinton was punished by the God-o-Meter.

Huckabee's ad was the "greatest ad," in Morris' words, "because we have to appreciate, politically, that Christmas is Huckabee's season." And the Huckabee ad, as the God-o-Meter points out, is the only one that mentions the birth of Christ.

Besides, the God-o-Meter already punished Huckabee this week after Bob Novak reported that the"elite evangelicals" who support Huckabee's candidacy are short of Southern Baptists.

"He did not join the 'conservative resurgence' that successfully rebelled against liberals in the Southern Baptist Convention a generation ago," Novak writes of Huckabee, a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

Novak says Baptists aren't on board with Huckabee, but other Christian conservatives are, particularly in Iowa.

Morris says the "Huckabee-Romney split ... mirrors the division between economic and social conservatives. The country club, upper income, Wall Street, business community is [for] Romney, the Joe Six-Pack, Christian right community is with Huckabee. That's the fault line that's running through it."

And Morris predicts Huckabee will win Iowa.

Like the Clinton ad, Obama's ad was punished by the God-o-Meter, as was Giuliani's. The God-o-Meter hasn't said anything about the Edwards ad.

But Morris says he liked the Obama ad, which achieves the "warm and fuzzy" level Clinton sought by showing Obama with his family. Morris didn't particularly care for Giuliani's ad, in which the former New York mayor (sitting next to Santa Claus) "lists those issues" of concern to voters, as Clinton's does. Edwards, Morris points out, "discusses" them in his ad.

Morris also says he believes the "anti-Hillary vote is coalescing around Obama." He predicts that Obama will win in Iowa and when that happens, much of the Edwards vote will gravitate toward him, leading to Clinton's defeat in New Hampshire as well.

And that could produce a new front-runner among the Democrats a little over a week into the calendar year.