You'll cut your foot off kid.....

Well....

A few years back, with Christmas only days away, I decided to take some time to ponder a question posed to me by my wife. That question; “What do you want for Christmas?”

I thought about it… What do I want for Christmas? Hmmmm….Well, very much in keeping with the movie A Christmas Story, there was one item in particular that I had  wanted for some time.

A Christmas Story always pops into my mind whenever I hear this question. I guess that it’s appropriate because I can relate to so much of this movie and equate a lot of the story to my own life (both Ralphie, the main character, and myself spent some time with a bar of Lifebuoy soap sticking out of our mouths). I’m sure that if you’ve seen the film, you too can find some similarities between the lives depicted in the film and your own.

Well, much like Ralphie from the movie longs to get his hands on the “Holy Grail” of Christmas presents, a “Red Ryder” BB Gun (Young Ralphie has the advertisement for the carbine memorized verbatim and reiterates its verbiage to everyone that inquires about what he wants for Christmas, including Santa himself – those of you that have seen this masterpiece of cinematic Americana know exactly how passionate Ralphie is about attaining this gift); I too had a similar quest.

My desire and dream for the perfect Christmas gift was driven by my 20+ years in the martial arts. I have always wanted a “genuine” Samurai Sword. In fact, I had always wanted a: Paul Chen, Shinto ~ Soul of the Samurai” .39” long, 1095 Carbon Steel, cotton cord wrapped over real Stingray skin, Samurai “Katana” (sword). I love to blurt out the details contained in the ad just like Ralphie did. My desire to finally obtain this piece d’ resistance of Christmas presents for me had only been fueled by the likes of the Tom Cruise movie, “The Last Samurai,” an Akiri Kurasowa (black and white subtitled) film festival on A&E and a special that had aired on TLC about the great Samurai Warrior. I wanted that sword!

Well…..One night, as I lay awake in bed  “dreaming” about my Red Ryder…I mean my Samurai Katana,  the Holy Spirit spoke to me. "What more do you need, Kevin?”As I lay there and reflected, my mind dissected the question and a review of my “memory files” commenced. My contemplation ended with a recollection of a trip to my doctor’s office (at the time of my doctor’s appointment the only thing that I wanted for Christmas was a clean bill of health). Anyhoo….While I sat in the waiting room, I read a reality check-type article from the December issue of Smithsonian written by Barbara Sjoholm entitled, “Dear Santa.”

This article was about a small “Santa Claus Village” in the town of Rovaniemi, Finland. This little village is where the majority of the world’s “Dear Santa” letters are directed. The letter count is well into the hundreds of thousands and they come from a myriad of different countries from Afghanistan to Zambia and every other country in between. All from children looking for help from Santa Claus.

In most cases the letters are light and typical of the Dear Santa letters that we all write as children. Some include drawings or pictures of family members, friends and pets, others are in barely legible crayon. The different languages these letters come in are too many to count. These children are from every race, color and creed on the planet.

The volunteers in the Santa Village reply to over 40,000 letters (the ones that come in with return addresses) via a form letter. The volunteers also reply to about 2,000 of the inbound letters with hand-written responses. These are the letters that gave me the answer to the Holy Spirit’s question: “What more do you need Kevin?”

The topics of these roughly 2,000 letters are of a nature that truly distinguishes the difference between wants and needs. These are the letters from children asking Santa to perform the near impossible. The children ask him for a new limb to replace the one that was blown off by a landmine. They ask Santa to bring back their mom or dad that was killed on September 11th. They beg for cures for incurable diseases. The children ask Santa to stop the bombing in their village and bring rest to their country that is deep in the midst of civil conflict. They ask Santa to bring back siblings that have died or been killed. They ask that someone adopts them from a Russian orphanage. They ask Santa to keep their school open. They ask for food to come more regularly. They ask for warmer clothing. They ask for jobs for their daddy or mommy. They ask Santa to bring back grandma who was killed in a bus bombing. Their requests go on and on… What more do you need, Kevin….(Gulp!)?????

We all get caught up in a Christmas season that has become so commercialized, even though my conscience and a banner that hangs on our Knights of Columbus hall constantly remind me to “Keep Christ in Christmas”, I still get swept away with all of the holiday festivities. Every time I catch myself I think about those letters to Santa and realize that the answer to God’s question is: “Nothing.” I have so many gifts/blessing  that they are too numerous to recount.

So, in closing, I’ll have to change directions and refer to a different Christmas movie than A Christmas Story. This "new movie" is also one that is a “must see” if you haven’t seen it already. This movie drives home the answer tp both the Holy Spirit’s question and my wife’s question, and provides us with the body of what all of our “Dear Santa” letters should say.

The movie is A Charlie Brown Christmas. The message is, and I’ll quote Linus (Luke 2, 8:14)…:

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were so afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying….

[Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is:] “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown…..

God’s Peace and Love to all of you.

Merry Christmas and to all a good night!

Kevin Neis

p.s. “You’ll shoot your eye out kid….” (or in my case, “You’ll cut your foot off kid”)

Get me, I'm givin' out wings!

All right you Pixies....

The movie Its a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra remains as the “Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World…of Holiday movies!”. My favorite for sure!

 At the heart of the film lies the conflict between the desires of the heart and the needs of the common good. George Bailey struggles throughout the picture with an irreconcilable conflict within himself.

Throughout most of the film we see an extended flashback of George’s life, in which George’s guardian angel named Clarence Oddbody  “AS2” (Angle Second Class) is shown a review of George's life as the head of a small-town building and loan.

We (along with Clarence) are shown the key moments in George's life, moments when he had to make important choices about family, friends, and career. We soon see that in spite of his desire to escape Bedford Falls, George has chosen to stay in town so he can run the lending institution founded by his father Peter. We see his dreams of college, travel, exploration and a professional life in the big city fall by the wayside. We see George fall in love and he gets married to Mary Hatch and starts a family.

The review takes a grim turn when, on the day before Christmas, a careless mistake on the part of George’s absent-minded uncle Billy, threatens to wipe out the Building and Loan and give “Old Man Potter” complete control of the town. George is on the brink of total despair. Thoughts of scandal and incarceration fill his mind.

Believing that he has failed as a husband, father and businessman, George heads to Martini’s Bar for a drink. It’s there that his woes continue. While grasping his glass of Bourbon, George gets popped in the mouth by his child’s school teacher’s husband. George leaves the bar and heads toward the local toll bridge.

George has been pushed to his breaking point.  As he stands on the bridge and stares down at the raging waters below, you can see it in his body language that he is contemplating suicide on this Christmas Eve...

God decides to step in and send Clarence the angel to prevent George from jumping off the bridge. Clarence (“I’m the answer to your prayers”) lets George see and experience what Bedford Falls would be like without him.

George sees that without him, Bedford Falls, renamed Pottersville, becomes an urban hell of mean little people including George's embittered mother and the wife he never married. Loud music, night clubs and riots. The picturesque Bedford Falls becomes a dark, rough and tumble place.

At the end of his conversion experience, George returns to the bridge again. This time to seek forgiveness for thoughts of suicide crying out “I want to live again”.   Well, the snow begins to fall (again) and George is back to reality. Now he joyfully runs home (to face his cross) where he is met by the warmth and affection of family and friends, who will together have pooled their resources to save the Bailey Building and Loan from insolvency. The hero's wry smile at the close of the movie and his wink to the audience signify that he has seen, understood, and accepted life in all its glory and imperfection. He knows that God is there no matter how bad it gets.

Frank Capra (a Catholic) called It's a Wonderful Life the greatest film he had ever made: "A film to tell the weary, the disheartened, and the disillusioned; the wino, the junkie, the prostitute; those behind prison walls and those behind Iron Curtains that no man is a failure! To show those born slow of foot or slow of mind, those oldest sisters condemned to spinsterhood, and those oldest sons condemned to unschooled toil, that each man's life touches so many other lives. And that if he isn't around it would leave an awful hole."

During this Christmas season, know that the tiniest, planned as well as random acts of kindness and charity that we perform touches someone’s life in a profound way. You never know when you just might be the answer to someone’s prayers.

We are all familiar with the notation to George in Clarence’s copy of Tom Sawyer at the end of the movie: "Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings, Love Clarence." A true statement indeed! However, I offer you this: there is a sign that hangs under a picture of Peter Bailey in George’s office that can only be seen in the background. You only get a glimpse of it when George is in the office with Violet Bick. The sign reads, “You can’t take anything with you except what you give away.”

Dominus vobiscum!

KN

PS: In 2005 Daniel Sullivan wrote a nice piece on this wonderful film you can follow the link below to read it in its entirety. 

Sentimental Hogwash? On Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life

Daniel J. Sullivan - The Catholic University of America

http://www.nhinet.org/sullivan18-1&2.pdf