I grew up in a time when people were still awed by airplanes and when radio was considered one of the wonders of technology. It was a time when kids who could buy a copy of Popular Mechanics and who had the price of a soldering iron could put together electronic kits that their parents would marvel at.
Those were tough years for both youngsters and their parents. There wasn't enough money to make ends meet, nor was there any way of getting a second job. Some people were lucky to hold a job at all. But one thing that was a constant was the Christmas season when, somehow, everyone was able to scrape together enough money to buy something—anything—for a select list of family members who were worthy of that extra effort.
Woolworth Five and Ten Cent stores were a favorite shopping Mecca for children who had spent the year saving a portion of their meager allowances. You could actually buy a fountain pen or a set of hand towels there for a dime or a quarter. Then, you would carefully take the gift home and wrap it as well as you could with whatever paper was available. I recently saw some wrapping paper priced at $8.95 for a relatively small roll. In those antediluvian times, you could buy Christmas gifts for the whole family for less than that amount of money.
And when delivered on Christmas morning (or for the first night of Hanukkah), they were carefully unwrapped, the paper folded and stored for reuse, and then appreciated amid oohs and aahs of the whole family. Christmas cards were exchanged in person or, if they had to be mailed, a two cent stamp was attached to the envelope and sent within the city limits. If it was a card to someone who lived a long distance away, it cost another penny. For those last minute cards (and you can read this as "sent after having received a card from someone who was not on your list"), a six cent stamp would send the card with the wonders of airmail.
And mail was delivered twice a day in the City and anything mailed within the town usually arrived the next day. There was even a delivery on Christmas morning. Postmen were also on the gift list. Christmas then, as it is now, was a time for the oldsters in the family to wax nostalgic about the celebrations of years gone by and to remember the people who were no longer at the table to help with the celebration. There was a tinge of sadness as aging began to show, and conversations about the past superseded those about future hope and expectations.
Today, there's still an aura of nostalgia in the air. People still remember celebrations of past years, and they remember friends and family who are no longer able to sit around the table or the living room and talk about events long ago. Yet, some things have changed. Today, paper is ripped off presents and tossed into a plastic garbage bag. None of it is recycled for use in another year. Electronic toys which were beyond the imagination of science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury are now commonplace. Home electronics, HDTV, TiVo, computer games or cell phones that do everything but think for their owners are accepted with grace but not with any element of surprise or awe.
We have come to expect the miraculous. The new seems to be only an extrapolation of the old, and we see it was a step to the future. That's not all bad, but at the same time, some of the excitement is gone from the game of celebrating the holidays.
In the cold, dark days of winter, men decided that warmth and closeness to clansmen, friends and family was an important element of a civilized society. They were mutual protection against the darkness of the outside world. Holidays were developed to encourage that closeness, and they seemed to work. As we turn over a new leaf for a New Year, it's time for all of us to go back to some of the basics that have caused us to come together at this time of the year.
Celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa with friends and family—sharing those holidays with the rest of our neighbors and our community—is a way of showing how interdependent we are. Exchanging gifts, however technologically advanced they might be, while at the same time reminiscing about holidays past, gives us all a sense of warmth, continuity and friendship that is a part of living in a civilized society. We can't necessarily export those feelings, but they have existed for centuries and have stood societies in good stead all over the world. There's something to having a sense of belonging to a group that has been comforting ever since cave men gathered around fires.
Warmth and fellowship are contagious. We should all be conscious of that as we go out into what's otherwise a cold, cruel world, and try to spread a little of that warmth to casual acquaintances and associates. It might just prove to be the newest technology for the future of us all. |
