OUT OF THE BLUE

Happy Holidays!

This innocuous, one-size-fits-all phrase took hold in 1942, when Bing Crosby recorded “Happy Holiday” (singular), hopeful of raising spirits stateside during the early days of World War II. As time passed, the phrase became a convenient designation, from the first turkey slice on Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day’s final bowl game. Those two words covered Baby Jesus, Judah Maccabi, Santa Claus and a plethora of secular images: chestnuts roasting on an open fire to — horrors — Mommy kissing the fat man in a red suit.

Beginning in the 1960s, Hanukkah, which usually falls in December, was promoted partly for its historical significance but also so Jewish children could light candles and receive small gifts for eight nights. Its message of religious freedom, plus a tiny vial of oil which burned, miraculously, for eight days, still resonates, although crispy fried potato pancakes have become the modern symbol. Kwanzaa, an apolitical, non-religious observance created in 1966, affirms the cultural component of the Black community. All three employ candles in their observances.

This year, since Hanukkah begins at sundown on Christmas Day and Kwanzaa runs from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, the “holidays” present a trifecta.

My father grew up European ultra-orthodox Jewish — and revolted. My mother’s family: Southern Baptist to the core. So we celebrated the secular Christmas, which flourished in New York City in the 1940s: the stage show at Radio City Music Hall had live donkeys; ice skating in Rockefeller Center concluded with the world’s best hot chocolate; animated windows in department stores lined Fifth Avenue; and, yes, chestnuts roasted on an open fire, sold by street vendors. It was magical. In the final days of WWII and its aftermath, Americans needed all the magic they could get. 

Now, so do we.

What difficult years we have endured. A pandemic killed an estimated 5 million world-wide. Hurricanes, floods, droughts, earthquakes, wildfires. Famine in Africa. Wars and massacres in Ukraine and the Middle East. A bitterly fought political campaign. Inflation. Humanitarian crises.

“Happy” sounds a bit naïve.

Yet the phrase endures. Butterballs went on sale before Halloween. Ditto Christmas tchotchkes — a Yiddish word meaning bric-a-brac. Black Friday spawned pre-dawn bargain-hunters lined up outside Walmart — and now Target, too — for everything from electronics to tube socks.

Through it all we continue to separate the lighted candle from the burning rubble and rushing waters. It’s what inspires people to deliver Thanksgiving baskets to families who can afford neither turkey nor the means to roast one. It helps organizations collect and wrap new toys. It keeps Project Santa’s Earl Wright distributing a thousand shiny new bikes to children on Christmas morning . . . for nearly 20 years.

Somehow, through war and famine, secularization and commercialization, “the holidays” have endured because we need them.

Acclaimed (Jewish) songwriter Jerry Herman, of Hello, Dolly! fame, said it best in the Broadway production Mame about the December following the 1929 stock market crash:

For we need a little Christmas

Right this very minute

Candles in the window

Carols at the spinet

Amen to that. And Happy Holidays, whatever one you choose, to this kind, generous community.