I work at an independent regional radio station and, while our signal covers seventeen counties, the focus is clearly local. We do our best to cover local events of interest and one of the most interesting is the annual lighting of the county courthouse.
Each year, money is raised to pay for the decorating of the hundred and fifty year-old building the the city-block sized green space it sits in the middle of. Then, on the evening of Black Friday, the community is invited to come down and await the arrival of Santa Claus whose job it is to illuminate the finished product.
While waiting, the growing crowd is entertained by local performers and a brass quintet who perform popular songs of the season. There's even a choir from a local school and a community sing-along.
The ceremony has been a fixture on the community calendar for seventy-two years. It's a multi-generational that both encourages looks backward and forward. For every conversation that begins, "Remember the year that...," there's a "I can't wait until I can...."
But that's what this time of year is for: looking back, and looking ahead.
I can't help but think of the snow that used to be such a common part of Christmas that I just took it for granted; the toys and the family gatherings; turkey and plumb pudding; old stories and even older jokes; the plastic bugs in the mashed potatoes and my kilt-wearing uncle who never wanted their to be any mystery about what lies beneath.
Looking forward is like waiting for snow: anticipation can be exciting, but when it shows up, you have to deal with it.
For so many years, Christmas celbrations were the same but, once I left home, every Christmas has been different, an attempt to start new traditions, create new associations, and that only embroiders the ghosts of Christmas past.
My wife attended several Christmases with my extended family and has tried valiantly to capture some of the flavor. She particularly latched on to the tradition of the Christmas Crackers with their paper crowns, small toys and very bad jokes. She got a box and brought them to her parents' home for a Christmas dinner. She imagined I would be more comfortable with this familiar accent. And, to their credit, her family all played along, but it was unfamiliar to them. They were uncomfortable, out of their element, which made me uncomfortble and so there we all were sitting around the table in stupid paper hats reading jokes that weren't all that funny. It made me miss the old Christmases even more.
Our traditions are not just a repetition of activities, the cookies and milk for Santa, the reading of certain stories, the preparation of certain foods; the setting matters. Once divorced from context, they loose their power; like Dracula disolving in the morning sun.
Perhaps that's why we hold on.
The connection to the past, even if it isn't our own, can be powerfully rooting--all the more important in this ever-more rootless world.
Some years ago, I stumbled across a local television broadcast of the holiday recital of a dance studio. It was a showcase for the different classes and each dutifully trouped onto the too-small tv studio floor, waited for the playback to begin and then did their best to execute the choreography they had been drilling for weeks.
And, in between "numbers" the camera would cut to a "Christmas set" which consisted of a fireplace and a comfortable chair where Santa sat by while the host and owner of the dance studio, introduced the next number and, most often, each and every student in that class. In the background, you could hear the previous group shuffling off and the next one coming on. There were a lot of tap number and so every footfall could easily be heard.
As might be expected, herding the students was not always fluid and so it often fell to the host and Santa to "fill" until everyone was ready. It quickly became clear that they did not have a lot of material beyond the names of the participating students and so Santa would throw in a random "Ho-ho-ho," and the teacher would talk about random students, that year's trip to New York and anything else that would come to mind while constantly looking off-camera to see if the next performers were yet ready.
There was something comic about the whole low-tech production: from the false starts of the music to the lost looks in the eyes of the students and their inevitable mistakes. But the show was not for me, indeed not really for the general public at all. It was a show for parents, something to record on the VCR and share with relatives and then, when their child grew up, to embarrass them with.
I remember looking for the show every year as it, for me, marked the beginning of the holiday season. It was one of my new traditions.
For whatever reason, the studio has stopped presenting their "concerts" on the local TV station which has only made my memory of them richer.
This brings me back to the illuminated courthouse and seventy-two years of community sing-along and waiting for Santa.
The lighting ceremony, like the televised dance recital, is decidedly low-tech. Some of the singers have trained voices and others do not. It seems pretty clear that none have rehearsed with the band as there is frequently an expression of surprise at the notes each side is trying to reach. The television camera never blinks, or cuts away and so we see the transitions between acts. Singers walking off while the next act shuffles on and sets up. A hurried conversation with the leader of the brass band and then the master of ceremonies makes his introduction. The band is mostly made up of young musicians and their lack of experience is clearly audible. But, like a rattle-trap car, it does eventually come together and we're off on a version of "Silver Bells," of "Jingle Bells," or some other bell-related holiday favorite.
And the audience is singing along.
Periodically, the audience is provided with updates on Santa's proximity to the Square.
Eventually, the word is given and the performers launch into "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" which is meant to underscore his arrival. And then, after a chorus, or two, Santa appears coming around the corner on the Fire Department's ladder truck. It's a big truck and there are people all around the Square, so its progress to the courthouse is cautious and lengthy.
All the while, the crowd is being encouraged to keep singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
And then the truck turns not toward the courthouse, but to make a complete circut of the square, before eventually depositing Santa in the street in front of the stage.
Only Santa Claus Lane is choked with parents and children and he has to navigate through them like a celebrity avoiding paparazzi.
Still singing.
Eventually, Santa hits the stage and, like an elf with millions of presents to deliver, he gets right to business. He gets the crowd to say the magic words, which are, of course "not loud enough" and have to be repeated. And, after the third time, the lights are turned on and the show is over.
That's it. Hard stop.
Everybody packs up, Santa is on to the next courthouse, or mall appearance, and the crowd, having got what they came for, dissipates.
It's almost like they've come for a shot, a dose of medication--or maybe a booster is more accurate: a reinforcement of Christmas cheer to get them through December and off to a good start for the year to come.
This ceremony is something the community looks forward to each year and contributes their money to help pay for. It's the start of the holiday season, it's the committee you want to volunteer for. It's a constant in good times and bad, pandemic, or no pandemic.
That's not quite true, there was no ceremony this year, but there was a courthouse lighting. In order to avoid possible infection, a previous year's ceremony was streamed over the internet, after which the public was invited to come down to the Square and see the lights. Even this hybrid celebration was considered a success.
Not really much of a surprise because, after seventy-two years, it's clear that the community needs this tradition in a way they don't need much else. After three generations, this tradition is baked into the community's DNA. Childhood experience becomes memory, becomes story, becomes legend, becomes childhood experience for the next generation: unchangeable and everlasting.
It is Christmas.
Real life changes from year to year, but this time of year, the short days and long nights, irrespective of your particular beliefs, seems to lend itself to reflection, memory and possibility. By the time Christmas shows up, like Santa at the Square, you're ready for a little magic. The days start to get longer again and the nights shorter. Time starts again. Possibilities seem possible.
It's really not important to hit all the notes, or remember all the steps, or all the words. We actively look for a reason to be hopeful around this time of year. I'm not sure if it's nature, or nurture. I'm not even certain it's a reflection of faith given the multitude of festivals that happen in December, but I am certain that a measure of optimism--a disease to which I am essentially immune--breaks through as we near the turning of each year.
You would think that we repetition and inevitable disappointments, this ephemeral optimism would dilute over time, but, every year, we feel the pull of our traditions, our aspirations, and our dreams. We pull on our cold weather gear, strap on our dancing shoes, and honor our traditions, if only in the breach.
And, I guess, if there is even a possibility that hope will be rewarded in the year ahead, then maybe that's enough.
