The Big Picture – 
Story and Photos By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Merry Christmas from the New American Journal, no matter how you celebrate the holiday — or whether you celebrate at all.

While Christians around the world celebrate Christmas as an annual festival commemorating the alleged birth of God’s son Jesus, we harken back to an earlier time when even the Roman’s celebrated the winter solstice by taking a break from work and feasting with friends and family.

No matter what tradition you study, this is a time of wishing for peace on Earth and goodwill between the people of the world. There is nothing nationalistic about it, and nothing particularly special about Christmas in America. In fact, the Puritans who escaped religious persecution in Europe and celebrated the first Thanksgiving on these shores did not celebrate Christmas at all.

They associated it with drunkenness, historians say.

Hey, we resemble that remark.

On the 400th Anniversary of Thanksgiving, 1621-2021, A Toast to Winning

There will be no white Christmas here this year, since the high today is projected to hit 66 degrees. That’s just fine with me, although a dusting of snow would be nice in the campground 10 miles due north of the Washington monument.

The white Christmas we experienced in Knoxville last year, in the first COVID winter, was very nice. It was fun. But we welcome the warm weather here this year. It’s a nice break from the winter cold that will no doubt settle in here in January and February.

Don’t feel sorry for me for being single and having no children of my own. I have my freedom and I’ll be celebrating this afternoon with good friends over a grilled standing rib roast, tasty local IPA’s and a few shots of Larceny whiskey in College Park, Maryland.

Something Special on Christmas Eve

Even in times past when I sort of dreaded this holiday, I’ve always tried to do something a little special on Christmas Eve anyway. When I lived in New Orleans, at the height of my careers as a college professor and a reporter and writer for traditional newspapers and magazines, I liked to do a little shopping, feasting and imbibing in the French Quarter. That was kind of special, although it was rarely cold there and we never saw anything resembling a snowflake.

As my friends who pay attention on Facebook know, my plan for this year involved taking a train ride down to Metro Center and a short walk over to the White House to photograph the National Christmas Tree, along with some of the state trees in the ellipse in President’s Park.

In the photographs below, you may notice that there are pictures from every state in the U.S. I’ve lived in over the years, starting with Alabama, my native state, which just so happens to be the closest to the White House by virtue of starting with the letter A.

There’s also Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and Maryland, the state where I now call home. I’ve even got a Maryland drivers license to prove it, which is good for eight years, so I won’t have to deal with renewing it for a very long time.

Special Christmas Carol Message

I do have a special message for this trying Christmas of 2021, with the Omicron variant causing a serious uptick in COVID cases and higher prices making it hard for poor people to get by in this crazy world.

Putting aside all the arrogance of some people in this country now who actually believe corrupt Republican Donald Trump’s rant accusing the press of being the “enemy of the people,” and the right-wing annual chant that liberals and Democrats have declared a “war on Christmas,” if Christians were interested in the truth, they should understand that the revival of this holiday can be directly attributed to the printing press and the written word.

Back in the early-19th century, writers imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of “heartfelt celebration,” historians say. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the novel A Christmas Carol, which experts say helped revive the “spirit” of Christmas and “seasonal merriment.”

The book’s instant popularity played a major role in portraying Christmas as a holiday emphasizing “family, goodwill, and compassion.”

Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of “generosity,” linking “worship and feasting, within a context of social reconciliation.”

Boy we could use a mega dose of reconciliation about now, eh?

Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and “a festive generosity of spirit,” according to Richard Michael Kelly’s historical look at A Christmas Carol publishing in 2003.

In fact, the prominent phrase from the story, “Merry Christmas,” traces its roots to that story, which has now been immortalized in a number of popular movies. So without Dickens, and his book, there would be no argument about using the phrase Merry Christmas. Both sides just need to get over it and stop fighting about it. To me, the true meaning of Christmas and the “Christmas spirit” means putting aside our political differences for about 12 days of the year anyway.

The Christmas tree was first introduced in the early 19th century by the German-born English Queen Charlotte. In 1832, the future Queen Victoria wrote about her delight at having a Christmas tree, hung with lights, ornaments, and presents placed around it. After her marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became more widespread throughout the Britain.

Then in 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas, popularly known by its first line: “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

The poem helped popularize the tradition of exchanging gifts, and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance.

In the U.S., Ben Franklin’s idea of a postal service was propped up economically for much of the 20th century by the revenue from stamps on letters to Santa addressed to the North Pole.

This also started the cultural conflict between the holiday’s spiritual significance and its associated commercialism that some see as corrupting. In her 1850 book The First Christmas in New England, Harriet Beecher Stowe includes a character who complains that the “true meaning of Christmas” was lost in a shopping spree.

While the celebration of Christmas was not yet customary in some regions in the U.S., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow detected “a transition state about Christmas here in New England” in 1856. “The old puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so.”

Newspapers in this country have long gone soft during the holidays, desperate for content in the slow news holiday season and in the interest of selling advertising to support their work all year around. It is my contention that we can do better on the web by making jokes about this whole business of Santa Claus rather than pretending that there is really a Santa and a bunch of elves living at the North Pole.

This tradition by newspapers may have started during the American Civil War in Reading, Pennsylvania, when a newspaper remarked in 1861, “Even our presbyterian friends who have hitherto steadfastly ignored Christmas — threw open their church doors and assembled in force to celebrate the anniversary of the Savior’s birth.”

For a hundred years many newspapers reprinted a famous editorial that dates to 1897, when Conrad Black’s conservative New York Sun published a letter from eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon and a response, claiming there was indeed a Santa Claus.

Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus

Of course there is no real Santa Claus. And most people educated in the ways of science do not believe in a Jesus either.

But the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects peoples’ right to believe it.

And that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate with a national holiday and take an opportunity to wish (or pray) for better and more peaceful times to come in the days ahead.

I like to use an alternative to Tiny Tim’s quote here, which he utters in Dickens’ tale to celebrate the softening of Mr. Scrooge’s heart.

“Dog bless us every one.”

More Photos

Below are the state Christmas trees decorated by high school students in each state. They are posted here in the order of my life’s journey from state to state in the states I’ve called home over the past 64 years.

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