LETTERS FROM HOME: CHRISTMAS LETTER 1999: THE SEARCH FOR A WONDERFUL LIFE

Dec. 23, 1999

Dear friends and family,

A few days ago, when DC asked a child at her office if he knew how long it was until Christmas, he didn't. She, too, remembers being too young to be able to count the days until Christmas. Those days she arose early every morning and ran breathless into the living room to see whether Christmas had come.

We got a late start on the celebration this year because we went to Western Missouri for Thanksgiving, the weekend most people begin Christmas shopping. Both of us worked overtime the next week so not much Christmas preparation was done. DC kept asking me what our Christmas theme should be. I kept having no ideas.

She compared her life unfavorably to those of the ladies in the garden club, who would have decorated their houses admirably by then and would be entertaining guests.

Two weeks before Christmas, DC decided we were too hopelessly behind to celebrate Christmas in the traditional way this year. The Christmas swag on the stairway in the front hall was half complete and she couldn't find the deer sculptures she'd decided to fill the front lawn with.

Now she didn't even want a Christmas tree.

Last week, hoping to brighten her outlook, I dragged in a Christmas tree while she was out and draped it in motion lights. She came home pretending not to notice the pine needles all over the kitchen on the way in. She acted both surprised and grumpy when she saw the tree.

She decided it didn't need ornaments. I could live without ornaments.

"It's a wonderful Life" is our irreconcilable Christmas difference. The movie depresses her.

She is saddened because George Bailey never gets to do what he wants to do. Obligations, responsibilities and familial expectations plan his life for him. She sinks deeper and deeper with George into the misery of living a hometown life he didn't choose. She feels that way about her own life sometimes.

For me, watching "It's a Wonderful Life" is like going to church. Afterward I feel holy.

No matter how forcefully I argue that at the movie's end George realizes his life has been enriched with God's more precious gifts love, a community of people to share it with and work that matters she shakes her head. She is George Bailey without the experience of salvation.

When "It's a Wonderful Life" came on TV this year, I let DC sleep.

Since the Christmas plans weren't going well we decided to celebrate the winter solstice. We would build a bonfire and invite a poet friend to read under the century's brightest moon. Afterward we would retire to the warmth of the fireplace and amaretto sours.

But when the poet couldn't come, our joint introversion and capitulation to the way things seem to be going led us to put off the solstice party for another year. We do have plenty of firewood and snacks for Y2K.

By accident, we have arrived at a Christmas stripped to its essence: home and loved ones. George Bailey's wonderful life.

DC stayed up late last night in the living room filling Christmas baskets with treats for some of her colleagues. This morning, Hank and Lucy didn't sprint upstairs to awaken me like they always do. DC's shriek signaled that the dogs had gone to the living room to open some Christmas gifts themselves.

Hank and Lucy couldn't wait for Christmas either.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian