The Random Thoughts of Henry Holloway
Christmas has become very highly commercialized with its rather artificial Santa Claus in a flimsy fairyland. The youngster who receives his parcel, for which he has paid, from a richly garbed individual, does not realize, of course, that underneath the red cloak is just one of the many unemployed, thankful for a job at which he does not have to work too hard.
Not always does the youngster receive value for his money either; after all he has to help to pay for the gaudy decorations and the coloured paper round his ‘present’. Somehow it feels all wrong. Santa Claus was never linked up in men’s minds with the idea of buying and selling, but with giving.
These Christmas cards, too; how far away they have drifted from the original meaning of Christmas. A cosy scene round the fireside with a blazing fire and comfortable chairs and the youngsters on the carpet! Yes, I like that, for Christmas is the festival of the family. I cannot abide tipsy revellers made to appear attractive in gay colours; nor the many other scenes which have no relation in the wide world to Christmas.
These reflections really started because my morning paper has just reminded me that there is some romance left in the world. The United States 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron hovered over the North Pole to drop more than 5,000 letters addressed to Santa Claus. This operation covered 3,500 miles and 15 hours flying. The letters are sent in weeks before to the American Air Base. One of them told Santa Claus that there would be a pot of tea and hot mince pies for him after he had ‘delivered the goods’.
That led me back to my scrap book where I have a cutting about a little girl who was told that Santa Claus lived at the North Pole. Without saying anything to anybody she wrote a letter and put it in a pillar box: ‘Dear Father Christmas at the North Pole - We have no daddy now, and mummy goes to work all day. I am seven, and Peter is three. I want a dolly and Peter wants a crane, but mummy says she can’t manage it this year, so will you please bring them in your great big sack, and a pair of gloves for mummy. Won’t she be surprised?’
A kindhearted sorter got the letter and he and his mates clubbed together and bought the gifts the child wanted and brought them to be hidden away for Christmas. The mother said, ‘But for this little kindness it would have been a very bare Christmas for the children. It is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.’ Is there anybody you know who needs a little bit of the joy of Christmas? They won’t get it, you know, unless you do something about it. You can be Santa Claus to somebody.
And, by the way, don’t forget the wrapping for that gift. Money can easily buy a gift but no money can ever buy the love that goes with the wrapping.
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