The Clinton chronicle. (Clinton, S.C.) 1901-current, December 21, 1950, Image 17
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THE CHRONICLE
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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
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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
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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. HOLLAND
Self-Service Food Store
Musgrove Street
YOUR PRINTING NEEDS CAN BE SUPPLIED BY CHRONICLE PUB. CO.
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