Yule Log
Howard, December 25, 2020
We were battered pretty miserably by a cold rain here in on the farm yesterday afternoon, but the warmth of a fireplace and the promise of snow made spirits bright in the baking of preparation of the Christmas Eve and Christmas feasts. 2020 edition, this: apple-bacon cheese dip, cinnamon rolls, egg-sausage casserole, ambrosia (née the food of the gods, now the food of the adults: too sour for children), enough for twelve though we anticipated only a handful. Thanksgiving’s socially-distanced meal drop-offs were duplicated with seriousness, this time, and in foul weather; boxes placed on porches and merry Christmases through windows.
The snow began around four and did not abate until early this evening, leaving behind a blanket of muffling, pure peace which shut out everything beyond sight. In summer, the valley is so full of sounds; crickets and a creek’s distant murmur, the private rustle of trees and corn and traffic. In winter, you can sense the vast, open space of nature, disturbed (if it can be labeled that) only by the slow drum of a snow plow clearing the paths and hitting the reflective markers on the road.
Christmas is an island of the divine amidst a sea of the mundane. Kids know this, which is why a great deal of their Gregorian calendars revolve around it. It is among the few outcrops of an older world that have not sunk into the depths; a sudden, swift change of circumstances, a sudden arrival of new material wealth in the form of presents and spiritual wealth in the form of divine birth. As Catullus described Saturnalia, the Roman’s best imitation of the holiday they could not yet have, “it is the best of times.”
Despite ancient philosophy, every kid is familiar with the letdown of Christmas night, so different from Christmas Eve. The presents are open, the belly is full, the Christmas lights twinkle. There is a sense of peace, but no anticipation. Christmas music seems untoward. After a build-up of nearly weeks, a sudden release into normalcy; the realization that dishes must be washed after the honeymoon. For adults, this is especially bad; we need the break from things, and each year it seems to grow shorter. We too end the day with a bit of a let-down; back to work, back to the news, back to back.
But maybe that is the point of Dickens’ and Frank Capra’s advice of honoring the Christmas spirit in your heart and keeping it all year round. It is a hard task and Christmas is attacked within (for Scrooge and for Mr. Potter) and without (for Bob Cratchit and George Bailey). I think one of the finest points of It’s a Wonderful Life is that Mr. Potter is not run over by a convenient train: it is what he deserves, but it is not what will happen. He will continue to be Mr. Potter and George Bailey will have bad days. But he will have had the one good day to prove to him the bad days are unreliable, they come and go; but Christmas and its goodness comes with cosmic steadfastness.
Today ended on a high note this year: the wonderful ritual of sled riding in which a great deal of effort is expended for a few seconds of delirious speed, a mouthful of snow and a chilling sensation somewhere in your nether regions. The clouds of flakes blew against us in sixteen-degree gusts as the young kids made the Sisyphean climb up the hillside, sitting down in exhaustion a third of the way up the hill while adults continued upwards with sleds and made useless adult comments: “this is a character-building exercise,” “turn your feet sideways to climb better,” “I hope you use the word ‘Sisyphean’ when you describe this in your article,” et cetera. The snow was perfect: six inches of the lightest, most powdery stuff a ski resort ever dreamt of, almost too much until a few runs down the hill compacted it. The kids admit this is fun, and at these words a curtain is drawn between this moment and the awfulness of reality. It is only a hill and the gray, cheery mantle of winter about sleepy woods, and a mottled Aussie shepherd licking ice off her paws and a burn barrel sizzling and fizzing in the snowy grass around it. There is sin still, but it is far from here.
And now it is the final hour of Christmas in a year when the world, much as it was some two-thousand and twenty years ago, was taxed. But someday, this year’s hardships will matter about as much as that one’s — Roman taxes and massacre of the Innocents and all. Christmas is the ontological argument stuffed into a holiday: its notions of goodness are so powerful that they must exist, really. The peace of Christmas drowns out the plague, the crisis, the divide, the hatred. We lament them, we experience them deeply; but we forget our sorrow in the singularity of the Day.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
