changing my mind“. . . Family represents the reality of which Christmas is the dream. It is, of course, Family (messy, complex, miserable, happy, so many gradations of those last two words) that is the real gift, beneath the wrapping. Family is the daily miracle, and Christmas is the enforcement of ideals that, in truth, do not matter. It would be tempting therefore to say, “Well, then ditch Christmas!” the same way people say “Ditch God” or “Ditch marriage,” but people find it hard to do these things because they feel that there is more than a ghost in these machines; there is an animating spirit.”

“Santa help me, but I believe this, too. You know you believe it when you start your own little family with some person you met four years ago in a bar, and then he tried to open the presents on Christmas Eve because that’s what he did in his family and you have the strong urge to run screaming from the building holding your banner about the end and how it is nigh. It is a moving and comic thing–a Murdochian scuffle between the Real and the Dream–to watch a young couple as they teeter around the Idea of Christmas, trying to avoid internecine festive warfare . . .”

“. . . Christmas, childhood, the past, families, fathers, regret of all kinds–no one wants to be the grinch who steals these things, but you leave the door open with the hope he might come in and relieve you of your heavy stuff. Christmas is heavy.”

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