I Confess (with Apologies to Scrooge)
By Leonard Wibberley
First Published December 19, 1973
12/20/2017
An insurance agent recently pointed out that, the walls of my living room being paneled in knotty-pine and covered in varnish (actually Hong Kong spar varnish left over from my days as a sailor), my rates were liable to be a little high because of the additional fire hazard. And I pointed out to him that if my walls were of plaster or some other sensible material, I would have nowhere to put my Christmas cards, the top of my baby grand piano being covered with an astonishing assortment of articles which ooze back within moments of being removed.
I ought to confess immediately that I love Christmas cards. Right after Thanksgiving, I look forward to receiving the first of them, as people in England look forward to hearing the first cuckoo of spring and have done so for many years, all through the Indian Mutiny, the Crimean War, the First World War, the Second World War and all the mishmash since.
The first cuckoo of spring and the card of Christmas are, after all, important and joyous events, assuring continuance of which, in these uncertain days, we all stand in the greatest need.
One of the nice things my wife brought me with her dowry was a mass of friends who every year without fail send her Christmas cards. Up to that point I hardly got any. Oh, I got the little holly-fringed card from the utility company, enclosing the bill, and an annual heigh-ho-ho from one or two magazines, reminding me to renew my subscription. But I received little that one would call a genuine Christmas card. Then came Hazel and a flood of cards annually from places like Dickenson, ND, and Bisbee, AZ.
At first I was a bit miffed.
After all, during the course of the years, I had quarreled with thousands of people, and you’d think that one of them would be Christian enough to send me a card at Christmas. But after a while I began to accept her cards as my cards, and to look forward to receiving a greeting each year from people I have never seen, living in places I have never visited. Now, if one is missing, the loss is quite severe.
Christmas cards, like music, novels, poetry, plays and so on, reflect the mood of the times. In my childhood they were innocent and were concerned with snow and holly and robins. Every year about this time, the nuns at school would give us a sheet of paper and three or four colored crayons and tell us to draw a Christmas card to send to our parents. Camels were quite beyond me. The distinctive mark of the camel of course is its hump, and unless this is correctly drawn, the result is likely to me a snail on stilts. I usually stuck to robins. Two rounds (one could hardly call them circles), one larger than the other, with a beak on one and a tail on its mate always served handily. You could perch them on a branch without showing their legs and feet which, unless drawn by an artist, look like an obscure script known as Linear B. The branch on which my robin was perched was always a holly, the leaves of which are always easy to render. Any difficulties could be covered up with masses of bright red berries.
Robins on branches of holly are still my favorite Christmas cards, though I get very few of them these days. The robin, with its breast at its brightest through winter, is of course closely associated with Christmas, but for a reason many have forgotten.
Two thousand years ago, the robin was a very ordinary looking bird, scarcely to be distinguished from the humble sparrow. It remained in the cold climates through the winter, sharing the hardships of men without grumbling and earning their friendship. One day, a flock of robins searching for food, came upon a crowd of people standing on a hilltop. A terrible thing had happened. A man had been nailed to a cross, and the people were prevented from taking him down by fierce soldiers. The robins, undaunted, flung themselves on the nails to try to pull them out, and their breasts became stained with the blood of the Man who was crucified. From that day forward, God ordained that all robins should have red breasts to remind the whole world of their courage and mercy.
Biologists have other reasons for the red breast of the robin—reasons connected to camouflage and mating. I have always listened patiently when they have explained these reasons to me. And I have always remembered to pray for them afterwards.
During and after World War II, Christmas cards became very party-ish. Santa Claus had a huge martini in his hand as often as a sack of toys, and sometimes Donner and Blitzen were prancing as a result of quaffing bumpers of champagne. The noble camels still padded across the starlit desert, a few robins survived on twigs of holly, but the general mood was “live it up.”
Then, the mobile took over, and I recall receiving one card on which Santa Claus and all his reindeer were strangling on a twiggy gallows gamely crying “Joyeux Noel.” Later there were a number of non-representational Christmas cards (all welcome, I assure you), but this year cards are more traditional.
I got my very first on the day after Thanksgiving, and the hazardous wooden walls of my living room are already beginning to glow like stained-glass windows.
Sign up for Leonard's newsletter at:
http://bit.ly/LeonardNews and never miss one of his columns.
To read older columns, click here.
