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T THE CHRONICLE Strives To Be A Cleon Newspaper, Comp' ite Newsy and Reliable 31|p Qlltntan If You Don't Read THE CHRONICLE You Don't Get the News Volume LI Clinton, S. C, Thursday, December 21, 1950 Number 51 > t I Ji % $ i r A' > Reform Christmas By OREN ARNOLD, In Kiwanis Magazine jmniiimiioiiiiiiiimnitiiitirnniriiinrtriiiititiTimtnmmnTrmTtimtmTimtiinmmt through Halloween and Thanksgiv ing. And wje have made no more money, therefore. December 1 is plen ty early to hang out the red and 'green." Most others agreed with him. •Small merchants especially pointed to a January sales slump that offset any over-stimulation before Christ mas. People have just as much money to spend, and all parties concerned can (be happier if it is spent with ease and discretion rather than in a fren zy. Thousands of storekeepers and friends, the Winships, last Decern-1 their helpers are actually ill from There’s a quiet movement through out our nation—and high time—to ward an improvement of the Christ mas celebration. Most social reforms take so long, the beginners seldom see results. This one may be the exception, because everybody is already for it. No pro clamations will be necessary, no rab ble rousing, no voting. You can join it no matter what your station in life. The how-to was shown to my fam ily when we called on our new ber 24. We found mother and chil dren decorating a cake. Mo senti mentalist, I nevertheless admired this effort. Icing was made into snow and green hoBy leaves, and held nineteen and one-half tiny red can dles. „ "Somebody’s birthdlay?’ , I asked, stupidly. The Windhip youngsters looked up at me in surprise. Of course it was a birthday. The Birthday. Tomorrow. We had brourfrt along a conven tional piece of merchandise for the Winships, a whdte-elephant sort of item that cost us $11.50. It seemed cheap, not inexpensive, but cheap in the strange glow created in us here. We held hands around the pretty cake and sang one song, then watched our youngest blow the candles out. This little ceremony was to be re peated whenever friends called dur- ing the Eve and the Day. The Win- ships’ gift for us was in excellent taste, yet restrained. Their laughter was relaxed, genuine—and cantagi- ous. It was apparent that the Win- shrps did not go wild at Christmas, as too many families do. Their man ners and faces showed no rtrain. Annually these folks have a week- long Birthday Party with many fine, standard trimmings, but they don’t lose their sense of purpose and pro portion. Theirs is the only tenable attitude toward Christmas. The inescapable fact is th« Christmas is a birthday. Too few people in our frenzied time have had the capacity to that, yet many are happily re discovering it. It is a temptation, therefore, to gush about the good intentions that my own f am fly has for this Christ mas. But the makeAwer of our spoil ed kids will have to be gradual; their altitudes can not be corrected in one unctuous dash of reformation, any more than yours or mine can. But children are responsive, with a keen er sense of rightness than adults of ten show. Wherefore, we, too, plan a cake with nineteen and one-half candles, one for each century. The ceremony that our children have planned should make our party mem orable. U is to include tableaux of scenes at the inn, caroling, tree dec orating, gifts—nothing shall be lost. But there shall be no super-sophisti cated hell-radsing by either young sters or adults. We shall accept what ever presents come to us and be gra cious about it; but we will noit "keep cases,” estimating costs and motives, we will not be unhappy if gifts come from people to whom we sent none. Some of those on our list are going to be surprised that we remembered them. My Aunt Celia is one. She is the wealthy spinster who helped me through by boyhood. But I have not written her in years, for fear she might think I was courting her bank account instead o< her affection, pride being that blind. Nearing a middle-aged maturity of my own now, I can sense that Aunt Cee needs remembering. A great many Aunt Celias do; wealthy relatives or poor, too long forgotten by the ones they may have loved most. Gifts, trinkets, glitter? They need but few physical iturns; they need invitation to a Birthday Party. Most of us know that a great many tilings have been wrong about our observance of Christmas. We have done little to correct them, because we haven’t pinned down details. Much of the custom we observe has gone beyond all normal reasoning. For that, all of us are at fault; we have let the complexities of living unnerve us and confuse us. In our family we have pledged oursplves to approach Christmas this year at a more deliberate, pedestrian pace. Let’s make the holiday a let-down time for adults as well as a hop-up (time for children—not a let-down in spirits, but in work and worry. Let’s make “Peace on earth” mean inner peace for the individual as well as an end of war between nations. Since early in 1®491 have discussed this matter with community leaders, merchants especially, in fourteen states including New York, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Texas and California. They are unanimous in agreeing that a reformation is past due. Said one retailer in Kansas Oty: “We have let the competitive spirit blind us. »We hang up Christmas decorations in October, which is ridiculous; people then are still football-minded, have not even ttdtted their interests frayed nerves and over-worked bod ies when the day of peace finally dawns. (Many of the “themes” now used in merchandising are in had taste. •Some are ludicrous, some silly, a few downright offensive, and the re tailers themselves admit it; yet most of the store decorations, window dis play materials and even street orna ments are made for them with con trol out of their individual hands. Customers’ response to some “themes” label them as atrocities—which fact is helping push the reform along. I, myself, love Mickey Mouse as such; or once I did. But when I saw him as a huge cut-out of Santa, and again as a wise man on a camel, he lost me as a lan. By homing in on something that, in my consciousness, was sacred, he ceased to be an en dearing mouse and became a rat. Last year on television we intelligent Americans were offered a scene in which a pillow-stuffed comedian posing as Santa Claus was trying to kiss a bevy of near-nude beauties ur\- der <he mistletoe, tins in an effort to sell us lingerie as gifts. Now, sex appeal is wonderful, just wonderful. But does your mind grasp any asso ciation of sex allure with the spiritual beauty of the Nativity? Such thoughtless ccmmercialisn— and I don’t think it’s malidous, just careless—has tended to make our Christmas season one of pagan vul garity. Surely, we can have fun at Christmas; yet Christmas is never That distfnotion tra Hl«i one The good Saint Nick is a saint, the personification—for our children—of kindness and love. He is jolly, but he is not given to prat fells and comparable slapstick. It would seem that no artist could be so undiscern- ing as to caricature him, yet many do. Indeed, most of the flesh-and- blood Santas whom we see on the street corners, in the shops and else where are so bedraggled and sleazy looking as to disillusion us al. I can not believe that they have much val ue as advertising media or builders of good will, and in this again most of the several hundred merchants whom I interviewed, agreed. ‘But what can we do?” asked one, help lessly. “It’s the custom.” Well, for one thing we can change the custom. Somewhat less offensive, but no less strange, are the off-color and off-theme greeting cards. These are created m a perennial straining for originality; and in trying to issue merchandise that appeals “to all classes.” Last December my family received a card, beautifully etched, showing ducks in flight. I am not anti-duck, but I can not recall any ducks in the account of the birth of Jesus. Other held-over cards (they are in a dusty box in our attic) in clude lithographs of dogs, kittens, Pike’s Peak, the George Washington Bridge, a cowboy roping a steer, and a stenographer sitting in her boss’ lap. “Merry Ohristmas” printed un der each picture does not lessen the suspicion that the artists were fresh out of appropriateness ,or that you who bought the cards were gypped. In the same category are the mod ernistic and even surrealistic trees that are forced on us. Beauty and artistry are not enough, at Christ mas; there must be tradition, too. I said as much to a young friend re cently. "But in this sophisticated era aren’t you sounding old-fashioned?” she asked. “Isn’t it smart to have things alive and modern?" •We mutt listen to youth, we old sters. Bift we must also restraih it, guide it. Smartness, alertness, prog ress—truly these are precious con cepts. But a few traditions have mer it as such, and if you change (hem a* all you mutt do so very slowly; otherwise you become an exhibition ist, flaunting not your sweet wisdom but your callowness and poor taste. Our Christmas tree—the Christmas tree, without too much variation from the conventional—is a thing of timeless beauty and symbolism, re vered almost as much as an icon or a creche. In our land a few other symbols are similarly respected. You would not think of taking liberties with the American flag, wrath would befall any merchant who “moder nized” Old Glory or disarranged it in the slightest. Yet religion is seated deeper than patriotism in human hearts. M we allow it, the Winship chil dren, all the world’s children, wili grow up asking why Christmas has ’been so outrageously commercialized. Why, indeei, do most of us go on unbridled spending sprees, taxing our pocketbooks and our souls? Why the vulgar competition in gift giving, the sinful waste? We can hardly avoid an honest answer—that back of it is false pride, greed. We must not wholly condemn the merohants nor the advertisers. For lo, we are they! As of now, business competition is so frightening that one merchant is afraid not to try to out-push the next one, and under Yankee standards $uch go-getter me thods are condoned. These are good standards, too; the best the world has ever known. They have just gotten out of hand. We are not by nature a people with restraint; we Ameri-* cans are the greatest overdoers in 1 history. Nevertheless, we usually take just so much of a bad thing, then rebel; we are basically a sensible people. If the merchants are ready for a better Christmas observance, we can be sure that everyone else is. Churches are already backing the idea enthusi astically. So would schools, service clubs, all other altruistic organiza tions; hence, mountains can be moved in short order. Truth is, much of our recent mad Christmas has been post-war hysteria, and will subside naturally if we encourage it to. Thus it is timely now to talk reform. It is a tunely moment in our mid-century | to point up the Birthday Party theme j anew. “But how,” little Gail has adreadyj asked, in our home, "can I bring gifts to Baby Jesus if I can’t see Himj at His party?” The answer is historic, classic— "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, | ye have done it unto me.” Let’s reform Chrittmas to bring; that sublime feeling to our people again. STAPLING MACHINES — Expedite office work and save time. Com plete line, aeveral kinds, and sta ples. Chronicle Pub. Co., Phone 74. AT CHRISTMAS While we're goinp about the business of wishing every body o Merry Christmas, we don't wont to forget that we owe our friends our sincerest appreciation for making pos sible one of th« best years we have ever enjoyed in this com munity. Thank you, each and every one. JOHN R. 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