The Hallmark Channel recently announced it’s scheduling a Christmas movie marathon during the coronavirus self-quarantine. People are putting their Christmas lights back up (or patting themselves on the back for never having taken them down in the first place).
And I absolutely understand why.
I understand, because for days, I’ve had a show tune running through my head: “We Need a Little Christmas,” from the musical Mame.
The musical, based on a book and a Broadway play, is set in New York City against a backdrop of the Great Depression and World War II. It tells the story of its eccentric namesake who, after she loses her fortune, decides she and her household need some Christmas.
Now. “This very minute,” in fact.
Right now our spirits need a lift
Mame calls for “candles in the window” and carols around the piano. But I think Hallmark and the people who are putting their Christmas lights back up understand we need something a lot more right now than just comfortingly sappy story lines and decorative illumination. We need the close comfort of home and family. We need to be grateful. We need to think of others. We need cheer. We need peace. We need goodwill. We need joy. We need hope.
We need these gifts of Christmas, and it feels like we really do need them right this very minute.
The similarities between the time stamp of Mame—the Depression and WWII—and the time we’re living in right now feel a little eerie. NOT that we are in a depression…but our worldwide economy surely has taken a hefty blow. NOT that we are in a military battle…although it does feel as though our entire world is fighting a weighty war.
So if pulling from the best parts of the Christmas season—the parts that aren’t bound by any month on the calendar—can help us all navigate a season none of us has ever been through before, I say bring it on.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be cranking up the Christmas music, digging out my Christmas lights, rounding up my Christmas tree cookie cutter, and putting on my official Hallmark Christmas movie-watching socks. I need them. And so much more than that, I need to give all the deeper gifts that go with them.
This very minute. Now. Always.
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