My Christmas Greeting
Kathy Riggs December 20th, 2009
During the hectic days before Christmas I manage to find time to read something from my Norman Rockwell’s Christmas Book. Although I have owned this copy for more than 25 years, I read for the first time an essay by early 20th Century author Booth Tarkington. Ironically the essay is titled “Christmas this Year” and its message is especially relevant in 2009.
The last year of World War II Tarkington recollected an experience, which occurred during the 1930s, a time of economic uncertainty like our country is facing today. In the midst of the Great Depression Tarkington learned a painting by Mainardi from the Florentine Renaissance was going on the auction block and could be purchased for far less than its worth. When Tarkington came home with the painting of the Virgin and the Christ child flanked by two other figures he set out on a quest to determine the identity of the thin, bearded man with a troubled expression carrying four loaves of bread. Tarkington learned the sad and grieving man was St. Nicholas of Bari. Over the centuries, mankind changed the image of St. Nicholas. He became jolly Ole St. Nick, Kris Kringle, Santa Claus.
In his essay Tarkington credits mankind’s belief that the world was growing better and kinder than it was in 1507, the date of the painting, for the troubled figure to transform into a jolly ‘ole elf that laughs and brings good cheer to children everywhere.
St. Nicholas of Bari knew only a cruel world and in the year Tarkington was writing, the world seemed cruel. “Christmas of this year needs the transfigured image of him – the jolly one who is merry because the world is wise – and kind.”
Today, in a world plagued by war, by terrorists and evening news filled with crime, Christmas this year needs the image of the jolly Ole St. Nick to helps us remember the magic and mystery of season…and the magic and mystery of the first Christmas. Luke told us that story in a book of the same name.
Merry Christmas
- Real Estate News
- Comments(0)