What Makes Christmas So Magical?
Christmas time is here / Happiness and Cheer
Fun for all that children call / Their favorite time of year
Snowflakes in the air / Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes / Of love and dreams to share
Sleighbells in the air / Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside / And joyful memories there
Christmas time is here / Families drawing here
Oh, that we could always see / Such spirit through the year
Here, here! This charming little tune sums up a number of things that I love about the holiday season. First and foremost is the sense of hopeful anticipation. One is led to expect any number of miracles. Peace on Earth. Reconciliation with those who have wronged us or who we have wronged. A visitor card from distant friends and relatives. A special gift from a special someone or even just a taste of a favorite holiday treat. Some miracles are life-changing and profound while some are life-affirming and sublime.
From the first hint of the Christmas season, our minds are set on a magical journey of hope and nostalgia. We look forward to hearing our favorite songs and maybe finding some new ones. We look forward to treating others to a surprise and recalling our own delightful Christmas mornings.
Every sense we have is acutely conditioned to anticipate another Christmas miracle. The smell of pine. The sumptuous flavors of Christmas cookies. The familiar charm of our favorite holiday songs. The glamor and dazzle of gifts in their paper and ribbons. The cathartic crunch and crinkle as we unwrap them. The magic of Christmas pervades our very being.
Inside our hearts and outside on the streets of the town, Christmas magic is everywhere. Just as the plain workaday streets are transformed into a glistening fairyland with the stringing of a few lights, so too are our careworn and heavily laden hearts lifted out of glum daily reality on a magical sleigh ride through enchanted forests of Christmas trees and ‘candy canes and silver lanes aglow. Funny what a little tinsel and some lights can do to lift even the heaviest hearts in the deepening dark of late Autumn.
Perhaps the most magical thing about Christmas is how it is expressed in nature without respect to either religion or commercialism. Long before there were strings of lights, tinsel or glitter, there was the magical twinkle of moonlight on snow-covered branches. There is no greater decorator of our world or our hearts than the one who puts it all in motion and keeps the magic of Christmas alive year after year. If we can take the time to see and admire the miracles in every moment of our lives, then it can truly be Christmas All The Time.
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~ from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” December 9th, 1965
Lyrics by Diana Krall – Performed by the Vince Guaraldi Trio