Now it's your turn...
...to be Santa.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
Last night we watched The Polar Express (2004), a movie which I loved from the first time I saw it and I still defend it today. I know it’s one of those movies where everyone has their universally pre-programmed response when it comes up (“Uncanny valley! The faces are weird!”) and I don’t care. The setting art is gorgeous, the train is fantastic, the scenery blows my mind, and I love the interpretation of the North Pole at the top of the world. Above all, the soundscape just wrecks my heart whenever I hear it.
And so this year’s concluding Christmas Carol is not a carol at all, but a current-century popular offering from smooth-crooner Josh Groban. I wrote a piece on it last year. You can read it there. That’ll give you the history of the song.
As the kids were watching the flick, my wife and I took turns wrapping the last of the gifts in our bedroom, then waited for them (the kids, not the presents) to fall asleep so we could get everything staged in the living room. My wife remarked that she loves how our older boys still believe in Santa, even though they know full well that she and I are supplying the goods. They’re also decent enough not to spoil it for their little sister, who still has a few years before she figures it out.
As time has crawled by, my relationship with Christmas pageantry has held firm, but it’s also changed in some ways. I remember the pure magic of it as a kid, the joy of the time off as a teen, and then…my twenties hit. Christmas became a busy time, especially the years I worked in retail. Finally I worked in a sign shop with my brother and I remember him saying in 2011 “Man…when did the magic die?”
It seemed like an odd admission from him. He’s a charter member of the Finer Things Club, and doesn’t come off as the type of guy who appreciates childish notions, only because you don’t find books about them in Latin. Then again, he had a four year-old at the time, and he was probably remembering his youth.
Tonight I saw an exchange on X where someone lamented that “Christmas doesn’t hit like it used to.” People have varying responses to this, some hostile, some sympathetic…me, I’d probably say “I get it.” But I’d also add “That’s what parenthood is for.” If I didn’t have my kids, I might feel the same way about Christmas. Like most other traditions inherited from our forebears, I take joy in the responsibility I have of passing it along.
That childlike joy and innocence can only be felt by the truly young. If you’re lucky, you get a taste of it in your youth, and if you’re able, you pass that feeling to your kids. I know the music and the movies and the colors and decorations and all of that, all of it is cementing those memories in my kids’ minds. The traditions change a little over time—we’ve never made an appointment to meet a Mall Santa—but they get the gist of it.
More important, my kids have a CDL-touting bibliophile for a father, and a hypercompetent homemaker for a mother. We want them to have fun, and to have joy, and at the same time we teach them how to find meaning in things. My son said this week with extreme severity in his voice that we hadn’t yet watched Home Alone 2 this year, like it was a canon event in the history of the holiday. Don’t get me wrong, we do love us some Christmas movies in this house. (Obviously).
But tonight, after we read Luke chapter 2, I reminded my kids of what happened in A Charlie Brown Christmas, and why it continues to be—even 60 years later—the best Christmas special ever. It’s about a depressed kid at Christmas, dismayed by excessive commercialism, who is reminded by a friend of what Christmas truly is.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Good tidings. Great joy. A Savior. Peace and good will toward men. Dare I say, all the things the world lacks at scale, yet these things were promised to God’s children a long time ago, and that promised was fulfilled in Bethlehem, 2,025 years hence. Two millennia have passed and the event is no less significant for it. Traditions have come and gone, the popularity of the holiday has ebbed and flowed, but those are just mortal trappings on the calendar.
The key to the magic is parenthood and posterity. I understand that these things aren’t on the table for everyone, for various reasons—and to you I offer this condolence, that you still remain an heir to a divine posterity, and that you are not forgotten by your Maker. Even His Only Begotten was born in a stable and killed on a cross after a sham trial. He knows your anguish and your longings, and these too shall pass. The covenant people waited scores of centuries for their Messiah…and in God’s time, He was born.
So in much the same way that we keep the magic alive with our children, we can keep faith, hope, and charity alive in remembering whose children we are. The Polar Express on its face is a movie about Santa Claus; may I suggest that you take it as an allegory for a slightly more significant figure associated with this holiday.
Then think of the words to the song.
You have everything you need…if you just believe.
You want Christmas to hit like it used to? For my money, that’s how it’s done. And I’m grateful to live in an age of abundant music that keeps this notion in me.
Merry Christmas. Thank you for reading to the end.