This holiday season should be significantly different from last year, when the silent night was enforced by pandemic lockdowns. Although this year was happier, masks and bottlenecks are still dampening the season of joy for the world. And peace on earth remains elusive, as always.
But even if it’s another Christmas for you, you likely have an unusual source of hope and goodwill on hand: your television. Streaming services have made a multitude of Christmas movies available at the push of a button, and if you dig down many of them have some very uplifting messages in the spirit of the holiday season.
Here are some quotes from some Christmas classics that reflect the time of year.
Let us begin with a revelation from a highly unusual source in Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”:
“What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas … maybe … meant a little more! “
Or the self-esteem of the angel Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life”:
“Strange, isn’t it? Every man’s life touches so many other lives. If he’s not there, it leaves a terrible hole, doesn’t it? “
Or in “Miracle on 34th Street”, when Fred Gailey says to a cynical Doris Walker:
“Belief is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.”
This feeling can be found in “The Polar Express” when the conductor says:
“To see is to believe, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we cannot see.”
And even in one of the least gentle Christmas movies, Home Alone, an angry mother tells a ticket agent:
“This is Christmas. The time of eternal hope. “
But who can forget the always optimistic words of the smallest Tim in “A Christmas Carol”:
“God bless us all!”
Or Linus’ words in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” at the end of his lecture of Luke 2: 8-14, that gospel account of the Christmas story that begins: watch over their flock at night … “:
“That’s what Christmas is about, Charlie Brown.”
And so it is in 2021. Merry Christmas everyone.
This editorial first appeared in the . It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than that of the authors.
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