Christmas vs Xmas

With all the long shifts I've been working these days, I'm having a little trouble keeping up the Spirit of Christmas. I understand many people are in the same boat, I see them on the other side of my till. People are frustrated, tired, overworked, overextended. No time to get all the presents bought, no time to relax with their feet up, a fire blazing in the fireplace, a good book and a spiked eggnog while carols play.

Today, as I neared the end of my eight hour shift, I listened to myself say the words I'd repeated again and again throughout the day. "Have a wonderful Christmas!" or some variation on that theme. I had a lineup of exhausted people in a rush to get their business done and escape the store. Behind me were my three co workers at their own tills, with their own lineups. I could hear their voices reeling off their own spiels, and the babble of customers demanding explanations, questioning prices, etc. I was on a roll - performing the transaction, bagging the purchases, and handing them to the customer with a smile and a cheery "Have a great day, Merry Christmas!" Over and over "Have a great day Merry Christmas!" And the next one and the next one. I thought to myself, "This doesn't feel right." I felt I was saying these words automatically, as though they were just an extension of my other lines "Will that be on your Sears card?" "Would you like a gift recipt?" "Here's a free $10 gift card since you spent over $100!" Sure, I looked the customers in the eye and smiled a real smile as I said it, but for me, the line was just a line. Something I will say again and again over the next few days until The Day has passed and it's time to go back to just saying "Have a good night" or something to that effect.

I felt a little sad as I realised this. It dawned on me that I'd lost the Christmas Spirit. I heard the canned carols playing over the loudspeakers, as they had been all day, I looked into the faces of the harried shoppers dragging crying children around the store, loaded with packages and purses and coats. I wondered what they saw when they looked at me. Did they view me any differently than I viewed them? Standing there behind my till, stuffing money into the drawer, loading customers' bags with sweaters and jeans and underwear bought for others who would likely be returning or exchanging them on Boxing Day ... do I represent the modern meaning of Christmas?

Later I walked across the store to return an armload of blouses to the ladieswear department, that a customer had left on my menswear counter. There was a man there, seated at the wide doorways where Sears opens into the rest of the mall. He was playing old fashioned Christmas carols on guitar, his fingers moving gracefully over the strings, a beautiful smile on his face. He's been there every day for the past two weeks. I've heard him occasionally, during those short periods when I've been cleaning up the far end of the menswear section, which is near the mall entrance. I can't hear him as I stand at my till - that is the world of lame, tacky modern "Xmas" tunes coming through the loudspeaker. I lingered as long as possible, listening to him play "Silent Night", then moved reluctantly back through the store to my own section. Gradually his beautiful music grew fainter as the tin music from the speakers grew louder and eventually overtook his last fading notes.

As a child, I loved walking home from school through the fading light of late afternoon. Approaching my own home, I would stop to admire the spiral of smoke issuing from our chimney. I stepped through the front door to hear carols playing on the record player, and the crackle of fire in the fireplace. My heart filled with joy as I breathed the combined smells of cookies baked by my mother, woodsmoke, and evergreen from the decorated tree filling one corner of the livingroom. This was Christmas. This is what I remember more fondly than the presents, the toys, the candies.

One year when I was about seven, I experienced a powerful urge to look up at the sky as our family walked from the house to the car, on our way to the Christmas Eve service. A feeling of overwhelming awe came over me, and I felt truly that this was Christmas. I didn't understand it really - how did the winter night sky represent Christmas? Yet it did, and it has ever since. Something about the vastness, the eternal black with it's sweep of stars, or the muffled grey when the sky is clouded with impending snow ... something about the cold that drives deep into my soul, sending a shiver of such absolute joyous Christmas Spirit through me, I'm overcome with emotion.

The universe is older than old, it has been here since time began. On Christmas Eve, the ancient night sky spreads its canopy over the land peopled with tacky plastic santa's and puts us to shame. All the lame decorations cannot possibly compete. There is nothing resembling the true Spirit of the Season in humanity's annual mad rush to "do Christmas". Look up at the sky on Christmas Eve, and you might see the truth depicted there. All it takes is a few moments of calm. Look up at the sky this Christmas Eve, and think about the centuries that this old earth has rolled along through space. Think about the world as it used to be, before lights and cars and plastic and unnatural noise. For just a moment, release yourself from the chains of modern Xmas, and allow your spirit to fill with the joy of the Season - Christmas.