Every blizzard is distinctive in a certain way. This one needed a few days to really build up a head of steam. An atmosphere of gloom took over, even worse than what we could expect around Solstice-time. All my life I have heard about "seasonal affective disorder" but never felt I had it. Seems that this year I have the symptoms.
Is being alone for Christmas a factor? This is my fifth Christmas in such a position. It helps that I didn't even consider travel plans for this holiday season. No matter what plans you might have had, best to just nix them in light of the weather. Those who can just hunker down and stay home are blessed.
I never considered putting up the colored lights for the 2022 season. I never brought up my small artificial Christmas trees from the basement. Such things are superficial for celebrating the season, of course. I have some nick-nack stuff like a Nativity scene that I could have put up too, on the piano. Not this year. Maybe again in the future. I am blessed by stable health.
The weather continues to deliver an onslaught as I write this, the morning of Christmas Eve Day. I was told as a kid that some people open presents on the Eve, others the next morning. Stockings on the mantle were optional.
All join in?
As kids we were encouraged to see Christmas as a universal. We put on programs at school that reflected this. We wanted the kids from non-Christian families to just join in, feel a joyous spirit.
With time we got the message that Christianity is not a universal thing - our attitudes should be adjusted. Celebration is not compulsory.
I felt the revision got extended too far when I covered an elementary school concert for the paper, and there was a song about Kwanzaa. Not necessary. We can dispute just how genuine or sincere that observance is. I think it began in a protest spirit when that kind of attitude had more traction in our culture. I have since read that its promoters have shifted, as they now want everyone to be happy regardless of your faith.
I have learned there is heavy emphasis on food for Kwanzaa. Therefore I would have little trouble wrapping my arms around it! Schools need not feel obligated to acknowledge it. For a time it was a sop to the non-Christian cultures. It was a reaction to the perception that Christianity was this big rolling train in America. Christianity would set the norm. Indeed it did as I recall from my youth. But us kids were never trying to put anyone down.
The wind continues to rumble outside my place on Northridge Drive, Morris. It is 1 p.m. on the day known as Christmas Eve. I grew up relishing the full family spirit including the dog. We had three small dogs over the years: Misty, Heidi and Sandy. There would always be one or two items under the tree with the dog's name. A rawhide bone would be nice for that. The dog could get distracted while we resumed the festivity.
Christmas Day always had us getting together with my uncle and his wife of Glenwood. My uncle was a banker which always lent some dignity for me as nephew of a banker! It would not have befitted me otherwise. The two Williams families alternated, getting together at our home one year, Howard's the next. This went on with other major holidays as well.
My wealthy uncle never obtained cable TV! He and my father always showed traits of having grown up in the Depression.
A rock for eternity
My uncle and aunt Howard and Vi are gone now. Their resting place is in Glenwood Lutheran Cemetery. There is a big master slab of rock with "Williams" on it. Howard and Vi are buried on one side, my grandparents Martin and Carrie on the other. It's pretty easy to spot the Williams name as you enter the cemetery. You should know that's connected to me! And I am proud.
Martin and Carrie are represented by small flatstones that are just too modest IMHO. Strangely, Carrie's shows more signs of erosion even though she died in 1949, whereas Martin died too young of cancer in 1933. My father Ralph was still in high school when Martin passed. I have always gathered that Martin's declining health with its struggles was hard on Dad.
Headlines bleak like the weather
Maybe some of the items in the news are depressing me this Christmas season. So much has come out about the misdeeds of Donald Trump and those around him, as they tried to reverse the 2020 election results. Perhaps worse than that, I had to soak in so much of the pro-Trump support that bubbled forth from the Morris area.
It is a fool's errand to try to point out the danger, the absurdity of Trump, with so many of the people who I know. They can get prickly and nasty in such discussions. All I am seeking to do is to be factual. More importantly, I am trying to point out the inconsistency of MAGA with the Christian faith. Once again, really a fool's errand. Why don't I listen to them? It's sound and fury, noise, sheep dip, emotions, based on God knows what.
So is the answer to just walk away from Christianity? It is hard to resist that thought. Yet I must weigh it, as I consider the wrecking ball effect of Trump-ism on this nation and its Christian roots. We may be going off the rails. Trump gets quoted saying he'd be receptive to nixing the Constitution, and his pathetic supporters like Jim Jordan respond by saying the orange man was "quoted out of context." That's the fall-back when there is no other rebuttal.
All the Trump supporters who march into your "conservative" Christian churches, please stop and consider that an all-out dictatorship is something that may in the end not work in your interests at all. And when you begin to feel regret, you may find there is no recourse because democracy no longer exists here. You will miss it when it's gone. All I can do is stay on the sidelines and try to comment about it.
There was a time in Germany when dissenters would be put to death. Remember the name of the Sinclair Lewis book: "It Can't Happen Here." The point of course is that it can. We have a congressperson in Michelle Fischbach who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. We are making our bed. You know what happens next.
Locally we mark Christmas 2022 with the news that longtime community pillar Helen Jane Morrison has left us at age 101. She was synonymous with the interests of the U of M-Morris.
Unfortunately we cannot assume it's business as usual for our campus. Some discomfort has begun swirling. There is a major issue with enrollment. A member of the Regents got in a hot mess when he commented about it. I don't think Mr. Sviggum or his Republican Party appreciate that UMM was the launching pad for a big rhubarb.
Is UMM as a liberal arts college facing an existential question? That realization has begun sinking in with us.
Christmas of 2022 arrives with the cloud of the unsolved Idaho murders hovering. Maybe that contributes also to the mood that seems less than full for the season. I contemplate the unhinged lifestyle of so many of the college students of Moscow, Idaho. The partying and the apparent debauchery. Might the incident be a wakeup call for parents of college students everywhere? If the kids cannot cool it and behave more civilized, they maybe ought to stay at home for 3-4 years after high school.
Actually, extended families are becoming rather standard. Economics spurs the trend. Heaven help the high school graduate of today who does not have family connections for getting established. I mean, to "just go out there?"
Were the kids in Idaho involved in some shady activity to get money? We must re-think our norms in America. One that is ripe for re-thinking is this idea that four years of college is so essential. How about a nice tidy two years instead? And be serious about it while you're there.
With all that as a backdrop, we can all surely join in saying "Merry Christmas." Or even "Happy Kwanzaa." I'm fine with that, especially with the food!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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