SENTIMENTAL ORGY

Evening Star, Issue 25673, 22 December 1945, Page 9

SENTIMENTAL ORGY

(Written by Mary Scott for the ' Evening Star.')

Christmas is here again—a peacetime Christmas at last—and even the elderly, the cynical, the disillusioned are permitted for the moment to lapse into sentimentality. For, try as we may to hide it, the* Christmas spirit has every one of us in thrall. I yielded to temptation and allowed my thoughts to wander back to those magical Chfistmases of my youth, when to wake at dawn and reach for my bulging stocking was the supreme experience of the whole year. Naturally enough, such an orgy of memory must have its trace of sadness for the passing of time and' loved ones, hut even such melancholy is of the nature of an indulgence. The myth of Santa Claus did not long survive in my case; an elder brother and sister saw to that. But Ido not remember any bitterness of disillusion when I realised the truth, for I had never greatly cared for the thought of an old gentleman in a repulsive beard landing on our ancient shingled roof at midnight, and the idea of his entry into my own small bedroom had always been fraught with a certain nervousness. It was much more comfortable to know that after all it was only mother who tip-toed in when she was certain that • I was asleep at that uneasy, half-waking sleep of Christmas Eve—and who filled the stocking with such loving care. I discarded Santa Claus with no regret at all. _ , As we children grew older, variations on the ancient stocking custom were attempted, but never'with any striking success. On one occasion a martyred elder brother consented to play Santa, and l wheel a piled barrow of presents on to the lawn. But the day was wickedly hot, and the whole occasion fell so flat that my brother in a rage tore off the suffocating robe and fluffy beard and flung them far from him. Several times the traditional Christmas tree took the place of the optimistic stodkings, but we never liked it as much.. Perhaps the Christmas tree is more suited,to the other hemisphere, where it stands gailv decked in a firelit room, and! the gforios of its candles are not paled by lingering daylight j without. However that may be, the] old-fashioned stocking dangling from the foot of the bed was with us the most popular of all, and far the most j exciting. I But in no time that phase of my j life had passed, and it was my turn to sit yawning on. Christmas Eve until the children settled down, or at least had the decency to pretend to be asleep. Now it was I who stole into bedrooms and abstracted the stodkings which even slump years saw strenuously full. It was my turn to be wakened at cock-crow on Christmas morning by small pyjama-clad figures j who expected their presents to surprise me as greatly as themselves. It was my duty to say with feeble reiteration, "Not too many sweets before dinner, . darlings," and to attempt to arbitrate, in the squabbles that blew up over nothing, but came from sleeplessness and excitement. Mine, too, the privilege of clearing up the remains on Christmas evening while the children, their new toys temporarily forgotten, had returned to their first loves and were jumping their ponies over improvised hurdles in the horse paddock, or chasing each othsr on the lawn, their wea- j pons long toi-toi sticks, their headdress I the tail feathers of our late lamented rooster. It was I now who sighed with relief at the close of the day and said, " Well, that's over for another year," and went to bed with that j feeling of thankfulness that has little to do with the Christmas spirit, but is most surely its' aftermath to the mother of a family. And now those days, too, have passed, and at last the time has come, of which I so often dreamed, when one can say frankly to one's family, " Let's save all the bother and weariness and expense of shopping and give each other five shilling presents this year. For my part, I need a new e,gg : beater and a coal scuttle.'' Not romantic, perhaps, this anticipation of Christmas, but oh, how comfortable! The whole business ceases to be a burden and. one has more time to think of what the festival should, really mean, more opportunity, too, to help those in other lands who so badly need it. One has earned this release from the work and bondage of Christmas—but. like all other ,changes, even for good, this very freedom carries a certain nostalgia. " How much time you have wasted over Christmas all these years," said my severely practical friend when she heard .of our admirable decision. Wasted? Logically speaking, she may be right, but who wants to be logical at Christmas time? As I said before, this is the hour for sentiment, not logic, the time when, for a brief period, once a year, we endeavour to see what is normally hidden from human eyes, the hour when the ideal may steal a march upon the real and the practical. It is .good for us to have this experience; it is better still if we can carry a little of it with us through the year, if we do not lose the Christmas spirit too quickly, and if the old poet is proved false when he -wrote: Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn, We entertain Him always like a stranger, And, as at first, still lodge Him in a manger. Let us not fail Him this Christmas, but be ready to recognise Him in the poor, the suffering, the hungry of lauds less fortunate than our own. No orgy of sentiment is complete without turning over the leaves of one's favourite books, and so I have been looking back at what some of the poets say about Christmas. I find that Christina Rossetti's lovely lyric, ' In the Bleak Mid-winter ' still moves me as it did when I-first read it: Angels and archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and Seraphim Thronged the air; But only His mother, In her maiden bliss, Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss. And Chesterton, whose robust genius delighted in Christmas, has infinite comfort for all of us in the last stanza of ' The House of Christmas.' To an open house in the evening Home shall men come, To an older place than Eden, And a tailor town than Rome; To the end of the way of the wandering star. To the tilings that cannot be and that are. To the place where God was homeless, And all men are at home. j