Needing Christmas now

I have always liked the song We Need A Little Christmas. Composed by Jerry Herman for the musical Mame, it was performed by the entire cast in the Glee Christmas album. It has also been covered by Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, the Lettermen and even The Muppets. It is not the usual Holiday song but it effectively captures that moment when somebody is so down on his luck that all that can lift his spirit is to have Christmas right now.

Mame was a success on Broadway starring Angela Lansbury and was later made into a movie starring Lucille Ball. It is about this eccentric rich girl Mame Dennis whose lifestyle is disrupted when she is entrusted with the care of her 10-year-old nephew. An indefatigable charmer, Mame soon had the boy imbibing her bohemian ways until she is forced to send him to a proper boarding school. 

The story is set during the Great Depression in America down to World War II and the early post-war years. We Need A Little Christmas is sung in the scene when Mame is unable to keep a job after losing all her money with the collapse of the stock market. She finds nothing else to look forward to but Christmas. So she takes out the Christmas decorations and the presents she had been hiding in the closet to bring some cheer for her family.

She sings: Haul out the holly/ Put up the tree before my spirit falls again/ Fill up the stocking/ I may be rushing things/ but deck the halls again now/ For we need a little Christmas/ Right this very minute/ candles in the window/ carols at the spinet/ Yes we need a little Christmas/ Right this very minute/ It hasn’t snowed a single flurry/ But Santa dear, we’re in a hurry.

So climb down the chimney/ Put up the brightest string of lights I’ve ever seen/ Slice up the fruitcake/ It’s time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough/ For I’ve grown a little leaner/ grown a little colder/ grown a little sadder/grown a little older/ And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder/ Need a little Christmas now.

 We all believe that although times had been bad, things will get better come Christmas. The celebration is a renewal of hope. Anger is put on hold. Tempers subside. We face each day determined to be nice, to do something good, to make another man’s load lighter.

I have known times far away from December when I felt I could really use some Christmas feeling. I did and it helped. I know that I am not alone in thinking like this because us Pinoys are constantly making excuses to start the Christmas celebrations earlier and earlier every year. From the way things are going, soon we will be hanging out the tinsel in the heat of summer. We need Christmas all the time.

There are times though like today and in places like Northern Mindanao, when having that joyous Christmas feeling is not enough to make things better. But every little bit helps. A bit here, there, another one there and another can bring about an outpouring of love. And again, there is that renewal of hope that Christmas brings.

I am listening to the CD The Gift by Susan Boyle as I write this. One of the most beautiful cuts is Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace. It is the prayer of Saint Francis. He was the Italian nobleman who founded the Franciscan order and who took on a life of poverty. Some of the most enduring images about his life are those of him giving his cloak to a beggar, caring for the animals and being one of the figures of the Nativity Scene.

He was not there on the first Christmas but it was Saint Francis, who came up with the idea of making a creche or a belen part of the Christmas celebration. His love for God and love for his fellowman made him great. He lived his life by this prayer.

“Make me a channel of Your Peace/ It is in pardoning that we are pardoned/ in giving to all men that we receive/ and in dying that we’re born to eternal life/ Oh Master/ grant that I may never seek/ so much to be consoled as to console/to be understood as to understand/ to be loved as to love with all my soul/ make me a channel of your peace/ where there is despair in life/ let me bring hope/ where there is darkness, only light/ and where there’s sadness, ever joy.”

Amen. Ever joy, hope and light and a Merry Christmas.