I think one of the most universal days of observance is that of New Years’ Day, following on the heels of a custom of New Year’s Eve celebrating the old year going out and the new one coming in.  This is in the hope that the New Year will be at least somewhat better than the one just ending. There is a piece at the bottom of the Op Ed Page of the NY Times this morning about “The Chestnuts of Christmas”. This is a reference to the music of Christmas that is a Holy Day that has a small window of opportunity between Thanksgiving and New Years. Thus there is a severe limitation for its sentimental and topical songs that for many are the only way to fit this holiday into our lives.

There is a problem, writes Charles Passy, in that you cannot get new songs about the spirit of Christmas since there is this time restriction and the real oldies have not left room for even the latest arrivals such as Frosty and Rudolph.  The religious songs are still the best but for most of the world’s Christians this is strictly a winter holiday – and there is the “rub”. In Florida, where evergreens are rare except for Christmas Trees, the wreaths and fake snow; these are out of place along with the ubiquitous Santa Claus dressed in winter red and white.  He comes to the tropics with his entourage of reindeer and the invisible little people who make toys for children. Somehow they get into houses and apartments that have and need no chimneys. The complexities of this mix of contradictions eventually is clear to children while the adults fight to keep the façade of commercialism at bay with the object of celebrating the anniversary of the day when Jesus was born.

Somewhere in there is the Prince of Peace. He is overwhelmed by the buying, wrapping, hiding and opening of presents and his message is largely ignored although implied with this annual Religious, Commercial, Holiday – Holy Day.

The songs of this period get to be repetitious but are cherished and the sight of so many Santa’s begging for donations and having children line up to sit on their laps are compressed into one brief period. The planners of election campaigning  should take a lesson from this short period of assault on the ears and eyes and cut the period of selling us leaders down to a few weeks rather than the years that are involved in the planning of this civic “rite”.

Chimneys, fake snow and Santa myths are anomalies in Florida.  These events, Xmas and elections, treat us folks as children who are there to be manipulated particularly to buy shoddy products.  There is a lesson here.