A Close Call

Ordinarily, the American public doesn't know how a president perceives the decisions he must make while he is still in office.

There are, after all, so many decisions a president must make during his term. Seems like the destinies of most presidents, in the words of Forrest Gump, float on a breeze — and not a gentle one at that. They kind of go from one decision to the next without spending too much time (if any) reflecting on one that has already been made. By that time, there are already half a dozen more matters that need the president's immediate attention.

You usually have to wait until a president leaves office, catches his breath and writes his memoirs before you learn which decisions were the most gut–wrenching ones he had to make. They're usually pretty predictable, too — where (and whether) to put American troops in harm's way, which programs to support financially, etc.

Decisions that require courage, that call for the wisdom of Solomon.

Last week, Amie Parnes of The Hill offered Americans a rare glimpse into the mindset of a president — well, of this particular president — and it wasn't for all three years of his presidency, just the current "holiday season." Still, I rather doubt that it will be the subject of a political science lecture, though.

"The toughest call for the president this holiday season," wrote Parnes, "could be whether to join his family for Christmas in Hawaii or stay in lonely Washington."

Parnes conceded that "there's no ideal time for a presidential vacation," which is certainly true. I cannot remember a president who was not criticized for taking a little time away from the Oval Office (Harry Truman once called it the "crown jewel of the federal penal system"), but "this one comes at a particularly inopportune moment."

Yes, I guess you could say that. Obama was already requiring Congress to remain in Washington until an agreement was reached on the payroll tax cut extension. It wouldn't have looked very good if he had taken a "do as I say, not as I do" approach to the matter and skipped town to spend Christmas on the beaches of Hawaii.

Fortunately for Obama, the intransigent House Republicans gave in (no real reason why they shouldn't; as Obama observed, legislators in both parties favored the extension), the president signed the bill into law and got to Hawaii in time to spend the holiday with the wife and kids in their beach house.

While he was in Hawaii, the president also mixed some business with pleasure, attending Christmas services on a Marine base.

Whew! Crisis averted.

Of course, for millions of Americans, holiday travel wasn't an issue. They have no jobs — or, at least, no full–time ones — and, without that, it makes holiday travel something of a moot point.

Has the same effect on the payroll tax cut, too, for that matter.

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The Music of Christmas

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It is early on Christmas morning.

My bedroom window faces west so I won't be able to see when the sun starts to peek out over the eastern horizon, but that hasn't begun yet. It is still dark in Dallas, Texas, where I have spent so many Christmas mornings in my life.

And I am thinking about the music I associate with Christmas. It isn't always what you might think. Sure, there are the usual associations with seasonal songs and grade–school shows, but there are other, more personal memories of music and Christmas that are on my mind.

Sorting out those memories seems to be the order of business for me this morning. Perhaps it points the way to inner peace, which seems to be a worthy goal on Christmas.

I can get just as misty as the next person when I hear certain traditional songs that bring back memories of Christmases past and friends and relatives who have been gone for many years.

It always astonishes me how empty you can feel when you can't celebrate a holiday like Christmas the way you always did, how much you miss what was and will never be again — and how helpless, how powerless you feel when things change that you didn't want to change.

Change is inevitable, of course. And I guess I'm feeling particularly vulnerable to it this year. Seems like a lot of people who were important in my life have died this year, more than usual. Yes, I know that happens with more frequency as we get older, but it still leaves me with an empty feeling.

Change need not be a bad thing. I've been without a full–time job for more than two years now, and I guess I have been a little impatient waiting for the next chapter in my life to begin. As far as I'm concerned, that's one change that has been too long in coming.

Still, though, I can understand the resistance to change.

I grew up in Arkansas, but my grandparents and most of my parents' closest friends always lived right here in Dallas. My father was a college professor so he had time off at Christmas and we usually came to Dallas to spend the holidays.

I guess Christmas is always a magical time for children, but it was an especially magical time for me, and coming to my grandparents' home was always magical.

There were times when — for reasons I have forgotten or never knew — we didn't leave for Dallas until Christmas morning. In those days, we would have our family Christmas, then we would load up the car with our belongings and the gifts for the grandparents and friends and depart on the drive to Dallas, which usually took about seven hours in those pre–interstate days.

My memories of Christmas morning in those days are of waking up early and remaining in bed, impatiently waiting for the rest of the family to get up.

Like most children, I guess, I anticipated the presents that Christmas morning would bring, but I was excited, too, by the idea of simply being in Dallas later that day, in my grandparents' home. That was always an adventure for me, and there were always things to look forward to — the brownies in my grandmother's cookie jar, the softness of the beds in her home, trips to the park on pleasant days (and there were many of them in Dallas at Christmas when I was growing up), the familiar sights and sounds that I always associated with Dallas, whether it was Christmas or the Fourth of July.

When I think of music and Christmas morning, I can't help remembering a Christmas when I was still small. How small? I don't know. It's a vague memory, but I was young enough that I was still crawling into my parents' bed in the predawn hours and snuggling next to my mother. I guess I was 4 or 5.

On that particular Christmas Eve, my father set the alarm clock so we would all get up early enough to pack the car and get on the road, but he set it on radio and not alarm so, when the appointed time arrived, we were awakened to the sound of Christmas music playing on the radio.

The three of us lay there in the dark for several minutes, listening to the music before we got out of bed and began getting ready for the trip. I can't recall the tunes that were played — I think "Oh, Tannenbaum" was one of them, but that may be the intrusion of another memory because that was one of Mom's favorites.

Most of the time when I was growing up, we were in Dallas several days before Christmas.

But I still found myself waking before sunrise and waiting for the others to get up.

I remember a Christmas one year in the 1970s. I had gotten a portable radio for my birthday the month before, and I lay in bed listening to that radio via the earphone that came with it.

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It was very dark in the bedroom, the way it is now, not even the faintest traces of dawn's earliest light could be seen peeking through the curtains, and I remember hearing, for the very first time, the song "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers. I think it had been released maybe a month before, but I hadn't heard it.

If I had heard it, I'm sure I would have remembered it. I was a Doobie Brothers fan in those days, and the song, with its bluegrass and Cajun influences, was so different from anything they had recorded before.

And yet I found it oddly familiar — and appealing.

Its message had little, if anything, to do with Christmas, but it had special relevance for me. After Christmas, my family planned to drive to New Orleans for a few days. We would be in the heart of Cajun country, where we probably would hear music that was similar to that — and, in fact, we did.

I remember humming that song all that Christmas morning while we did our family Christmas thing, then when we bundled up and drove to the retirement home where my father's mother was living. I didn't hum "Black Water" as we walked through the rather bland, antiseptic halls to my grandmother's room, but the song was playing on an endless loop in my head.

Not exactly "White Christmas," but, even today, when I hear "Black Water," I remember that Christmas morning.

Christmas always reminds me, too, of my mother, as I have written here before. It has never come close to being the same for me since she died.

I've been thinking of one Christmas in particular. I couldn't say what year it was, but it was when I was still living in Little Rock and vinyl LPs were still being sold so it must have been in the 1980s.

One of my closest friends was working as a clerk in a record store, and I told him I was looking for a record to give Mom for Christmas.

Mom was always very musical, and she was fond of performers like Simon and Garfunkel, Don McLean, John Denver, but I wanted to get her something I didn't think she had heard.

My friend suggested a collection of winter–oriented instrumental classical music from Windham Hill that featured a variety of artists like George Winston. I went by the store one night when he was there, and he played some of the album for me. I was impressed and bought it on the spot.

On Christmas morning, I remember sitting on the floor next to Mom when she opened my gift. She wanted to hear it right away, and it provided the perfect backdrop for a family Christmas. For the rest of her life, Mom frequently played that album on Christmas.

Christmas truly was Mom's time of year, just as it was for an old friend of mine, Phyllis, who died earlier this year. I don't think Phyllis and I ever spent a Christmas together, but we did see each other during the holidays.

And I always knew, even if I didn't see first hand, how much Christmas meant to her.

So this year especially, my thoughts are of Phyllis. And, indirectly, that, too, reminds me of some music that makes me think of Christmas.

Phyllis, as I have mentioned before, was a dedicated Christian. She changed Protestant denominations during her life, but, as far as I know, she always believed in God and Jesus.

She was also a talented musician. She loved all kinds of music. Well, I don't know how she felt about rap, but I think she liked just about every other kind of music.

About a year or two before we met, a rock opera called "Jesus Christ Superstar" was doing something that organized religion was failing to do — bring young people into the flock.

Phyllis and I never discussed "Jesus Christ Superstar." But I think she approved of any music that inspired people to seek God.

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Anyway, I remember one Christmas when my parents gave me a small package, small enough to fit in my hand. When I opened it, it turned out to be a homemade cassette recording of "Jesus Christ Superstar."

My father was a religion professor at a small liberal arts college in my hometown. As I recall, there was one copy of "Jesus Christ Superstar," a two–record set packaged in a special box (rare for that time) with a libretto, in the library at the college where he taught — or perhaps it was at the church where we were members.

Whichever it was, my father arranged to borrow it and recorded it when the technology for doing so was primitive, to say the least. The record he used as his source was scratchy, and it yielded a copy that was far from perfect. But I treasured that tape and listened to it endlessly until it finally gave out.

And even today, when I hear a song from that original recording, I remember that Christmas morning, whenever it was, and I listened for the first time to that tape my father made for me.

OK, my musical Christmas memories aren't exactly "White Christmas" or "Jingle Bells."

But they're mine, and I treasure them.

If you have a few minutes to spare on this Christmas Day, I'd like to hear about your Christmas memories — musical or not.

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The Question of the Season

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"Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus."

Francis Church
Editorial writer, New York Sun
Sept. 21, 1897

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Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reprinted the famous 19th–century editorial that answered 8–year–old Virginia O'Hanlon's plaintive question, "Is there a Santa Claus?"

The newspaper is hardly the first to reprint the editorial. It is simply continuing a long tradition. It is the most reprinted English language editorial of all time, especially at this time of the year.

The original editorial was published in the old New York Sun. It was written by a fellow named Francis Church.

Most people think it was published on Christmas Eve — or, at least, during the Christmas season. In fact, it was published on Sept. 21, 1897.

Most people also think the headline for that editorial was "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." And the Journal Sentinel did its part to perpetuate that myth yesterday when it ran its reprint under the headline "Yes, Virginia ..."

Whenever one sees those two words, I guess it is understood that the famous editorial — or a discussion about it — will follow.

But, in reality, that was part of the reply to young Virginia's letter to the editor.

The actual headline was not nearly as certain as that. In fact, it wasn't assertive at all. It was a question, which was appropriate, I think. It reflected the skepticism, no matter how small it may be or how great the faith of the person involved, that what one has been told is the truth.

"Is There a Santa Claus?" it asked. Yep, it repeated the very same question young Virginia asked in her letter. But it did more than just answer a question with the same question.

Church could have proceeded to repeat the same old tales parents have been telling their children about Santa Claus for decades — well, at least since "The Night Before Christmas" was published in 1823.

But, instead, he seized the opportunity to explore the philosophical issues the brief letter raised.

Church's reply was brief as well, but he managed to address the question of the existence of things unseen.

Santa Claus, he assured Virginia, "exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

"Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus," he continued. "It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished."

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the more cynical elements of the Christmas season would, at some point, hijack the simplicity of Virginia's question and the elegance of the editorial reply and use "Yes, Virginia" to lure shoppers to the stores, as Macy's did this year in its Christmas campaign encouraging children to write "Yes Virginia Santa Letters."

In 2008 and 2009, Macy's utilized the editorial in its holiday commercials, featuring folks like Jessica Simpson, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart and Queen Latifah reading famous lines from it.

A few years back, Lord & Taylor used "Yes, Virginia" as the theme for its store windows in Manhattan.

And, like any really good piece of writing, the editorial has been lampooned and used as the basis for jokes.

I guess my favorite was in 2001. The Detroit Lions finally won a football game after losing their first 12. Jay Leno, who had been joking about the Lions' losing ways all season, said in his monologue, "There was a new Christmas movie released this weekend. It was called, 'Yes, Detroit, There Is An End Zone.' "

I recall an interesting play on the line when I was a child and Apollo 8 orbited the moon on Christmas Eve.

Upon re–establishing radio contact with mission control in Houston, astronaut Jim Lovell said, "Please be informed there is a Santa Claus."

The reply from Houston was, "You're the best ones to know."

"Yes, Virginia" has become a cliche. For some, it is a marketing tool. For Virginia O'Hanlon, it was a sincere question.

Some people know how to answer that question better than others. And Virginia might have been more reassured if she heard there was a Santa from an astronaut than from an editorial writer. But there were no astronauts when she was a child. In fact, there were barely astronauts at the end of her life. She died almost two years after Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

So I guess the most authoritative source she could find in the late 19th century was an editor for the New York Sun. The Sun was clearly held in high esteem in her household. After all, she said in her letter, "Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.' "

The Sun may have told her more than she asked for, but its answer has been repeated frequently to generations of children who have sought the same answer Virginia did.

I expect that continue, as it has for the last 113 years.

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A Christmas Mystery

Here's a real–life Christmas mystery for you to ponder.

Don't feel bad if you can't solve it. It's been around for nearly two centuries.

Anyway, I'm sure you're familiar with "The Night Before Christmas."

You know the poem I'm talking about — the one that begins "Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house/Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ..."

Yeah, I knew you were familiar with it.

Well, anyway, it was published anonymously 187 years ago today in the Sentinel of Troy, N.Y. And it is given credit for just about everything that is believed by children about Santa Claus — how he looks, how many reindeer he has and what their names are, the notion that he uses a sleigh to make his Christmas Eve deliveries, the idea that he leaves presents for children all over the world.

For a long time, the poem was reprinted with no author's name mentioned. Then, a scholar and professor of first Oriental and Greek literature and then Biblical studies named Clement Clarke Moore acknowledged authorship.

He claimed to have written it for his children and had wished to remain anonymous because of his position, but he was persuaded by his children to come forward so it could be included in an anthology of his works that was published more than two decades after the poem appeared in the Sentinel.

And, for more than a century, it was generally accepted that Moore was the author.

But then, along came English professor Donald Foster, a pioneer in the field of content analysis. What is content analysis, you may ask? Well, it is a methodology for studying the content of communication. In Foster's case, he has specialized in studying texts to determine whether they were authentic. At times, his skills have been used in criminal investigations.

Foster first came to public attention in the late 1980s, when he explored the mystery of the dedication of Shakespeare's sonnets. While he was involved in that research, Foster came across what he believed to be a previously unknown work by Shakespeare. Opinion among scholars has been mixed.

So, too, has been the response to his assertion that a writer named Henry Livingston Jr. actually wrote "The Night Before Christmas." Foster apparently was persuaded to join a movement by Livingston's descendants to have him recognized as the poem's author.

That hasn't happened yet. There is still considerable dispute over the authorship.

Which man wrote the poem? Well, here is what is known.

In 1837, 14 years after the poem was first published, the Pennsylvania Inquirer and Daily Courier credited Moore. Its source was one of Moore's friends.

Scholars (including Foster) have pointed out that the style and phrasing used in the poem resembles other works by Livingston.

However, it has been argued that Foster focused only on the passages from the poem that conformed to his theory, and that many of Moore's works also are similar in style and phrasing to the poem.

So who's right? Who wrote the poem?

Well, in the words of ... er, whoever ... Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

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