LEND ME YOUR EAR: HUMOR IN CHRISTMAS STORY

The Chinese measure time by the year -- Year of the Dragon, the Lion, the Dog. In our country, time goes so fast we settle for decades -- the Terrible Twenties, Depression Thirties...the rebellious Sixties, the extravagant Eighties.

How to define the Nineties is hardly feasible at the half-way mark, but our vote goes to the Child. To the realization and renewed focus on children as the world's most valuable asset.

The season we call Christmas has always been geared to children in our part of the world, though also the time when grown-ups become children again. In recent years, society has turned Christmas into a year-long event, reminding us that the season is for giving, for caring and sharing. How many on the giving or receiving end know that Christmas is celebrated because of a Child -- that the word derives from the birth of the Christ Child?

Of all the holidays we celebrate, the birth of the Baby Jesus is marked throughout the civilized world by pageantry, parades, by shining lights and stars, and the singing of carols by young and old alike, though many participants may not understand the Source.

Little children are inclined to see the lights and songs as pictures, and with their imperfect hearing and vivid imaginations may see words as pictures far removed from their intended meaning. My cousin Susan, of Dallas, has provided us with a new book bearing this out. Written by Kevin McCarthy, who specializes in children's misconceptions, the tacky-looking little treasure is titled "Gorilla Warfare."

One familiar misconception included in the collection relates to the hymn "Gladly the Cross I'd Bear." The illustrator's sketch shows a bear looking cheerful even though his eyes are crossed. A drawing of the Cross is beyond the bear's defective vision, and reach.

We interpret such misconceptions with sympathetic smiles, having learned how many meanings a single word can have. Hence, we beg our readers' indulgence and offer just a scattering of further examples.

A bespectacled Sunday School teacher, reading the Christmas Story to a group of six little ones, calls on a boy-child, Michael, to name the parents of Jesus. Hesitating, Michael ventures "Uh...Virg, and Mary?"

In another picture, the teacher continues reading the Story, enumerating special gifts the Three Wise Men, following a Star, laid at the manger of the Child destined to become the Savior of the world. The wee ones see the gifts of incense, frankincense, and myrrh as three donkeys named Incense, Frankenstein, and Merv.

Eventually, the teacher comes to God's creation of Adam and Eve, and how they sinned by sampling forbidden fruit: "...and God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden in a fury," she finishes. Her excited charges translate this image into a wrinkled old God wearing a halo, his long untidy beard flying wildly in the wind -- driving the two sinners out of the garden in a car labeled FURY.

This year, on Thanksgiving Day, a treasure of a toddler named Curran Hennessey, with his mother, the former Beth Rader, came to call on me. Curran, who would turn two shortly, proved a curious and independent creature. Despite "Mahmah" Beth's persistent efforts to curb his active nature, Curran managed to press every button and de-lid every lidded thing within reach. Merely investigative at first, his Christmas spirit took wings that quickly turned into fingers on discovering candy beneath most lids. On the instant, our little toddler became a bundle of joy!

Still toddling about, the joyful bundle caught sight of the small box beside my bed. Yet another box with buttons to brighten his stay!

It was "Mahmah" who risked the question: What was the box for?

Press the red button, I explained without thinking, and a beep would trigger colored lights -- red, green, and gold. But press only if the owner needed help.

Before Beth could shout "No!", the beeper beeped. So for one ecstatic moment, little Curran got to see those glorious lights flash. And he did it himself!

Those Lifeline lights, of course, are only a security blanket for dependent live-aloners. Our real help comes from Above.

Merry Christmas

~Aileen Lorberg is a language columnist for the Southeast Missourian.