THE DAY IT WASN ' T CHRISTMAS
Mayer, Milton
THE DAY IT WASN'T CHRISTMAS by MILTON MAYER IT WAS the night before Christmas. By all standard indices—and all indices are standard—it was the biggest Christmas Eve in history. Business Index...
...No—he isn't dead...
...What do you mean...
...None of them cried or whimpered...
...Everybody was giving, and giving good...
...Jokers joked, jabberers jabbered, pranksters played pranks, loafers loafed, and ladies who talk all morning on the telephone talked all morning on the telephone...
...The liberal American Protestant Christian Century said, "It is better to run the risk of war involved in resisting the Russian advance than it would be to compound that risk by giving Russia the means of further aggression...
...Business Index said that Christmas spending had reached an all-time high, especially in the luxury lines...
...With church membership at (of course)—its all-time high, the churches were full...
...said Kimmy...
...Kimmy came into her mother's room in her snuggle-bunny, and her mother, who was a light sleeper, told her to go back to bed and go to sleep...
...But in the middle of all the unwrapping (and the first eggnog of the day) something happened...
...There always have been...
...The noise of it all woke up the children, who added their laughter and shouting to it...
...Christmas Eve was the 24th of December...
...It wasn't Christmas today," said Kimmy...
...Now go to sleep, dear...
...It wasn't Christmas for anybody anywhere, except for a new-born baby that lay abandoned on the doorstep of the world on Christmas Eve...
...Does he get presents...
...Mothers picked up last night's newspaper and looked at the date...
...God's little boy...
...Who's Jesus...
...Its purpose was to portray the blessings of American liberty to the Russian slaves and thereby arouse the slaves to rebellion...
...The Gallup Poll said that agreement was at an all-time high in America and many people agreed that it was...
...He just isn't here any more...
...It was just as if it were a regular day...
...I wouldn't even have a birthday...
...Well, good-night, dear," said Kimmy's mother...
...said Kimmy...
...N—no," said her mother, "God was always here...
...He said Jesus of the Jewish family of David was the all-time prophet...
...Smith of Rural Route 1 actually heard the herald angels sing at midnight...
...Mom and Dad had presents from Dad and Mom, and Grandma and Grandpa, and the merchants and the newsboys (don't forget the newsboy) had presents from their customers and their customers had presents from the merchants...
...But children below and above middle-size seemed to know it—that Christmas hadn't come—as well as middle-sized children and grownups...
...Everybody was unwrapping presents...
...The Pope, as the Vicar of Christ, "Who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live," pressed the opening button...
...Then why does he have a birthday...
...N—no...
...said Kimmy...
...Because," said her mother, "Christmas is special...
...Never before had there been such splendid decorations on banks and churches, or Christmas trees of such height in the wells of department stores...
...Then Jesus isn't like God," said Kimmy...
...So did the segregationists and the integration-ists and the 38th Street Tavern Owners Association, all of them agreeing with the Christians, this Christmas Eve, that (given the alternatives) it is better to crucify than be crucified...
...Norman Vincent Peale and Fulton J. Sheen were opposite each other on NBC and CBS...
...Then why does he have a party...
...It's the 25th...
...But your mommy and daddy care about you," said Kimmy's mother...
...Wives said, "I've got to get a load of wash in the machine right away...
...One of them got out a magazine with the question, Is Whole World in Trouble...
...Nobody, young or old, cried or whimpered on the Eve of Glad Tidings and the Good News of Salvation...
...No, dear," said her mother...
...Then Kimmy's mother and father went to bed and went to sleep...
...People put bowls of eggnog into the refrigerator—or even the freezer—without saying anything about it...
...All in all, it was a glorious Christmas Eve...
...That's what...
...One of the children who was put to bed was Kimmy...
...Kimmy said, "I can't," and her mother asked her why, and Kimmy said, "What happened to Christmas...
...It wasn't as if people were embarrassed or angry at themselves about getting their dates mixed...
...Pretty soon the streets were busy, the way they are at the morning rush hour...
...Decibel-counters revealed that there had never been so much noise on Christmas Eve before...
...Every standard brand of whiskey— and every brand is standard—had a special Christmas packaging...
...But she got up and took Kimmy back to bed...
...Everywhere, all over the world, it was just as it was at Kimmy's house, where it wasn't Christmas that day at all...
...No...
...She got, as far as the door...
...Oh, everyone has a birthday...
...And middle-sized children said, "Is Christmas always the 25th...
...That's what...
...Believe me, it was a long cry from the first Christmas Eve...
...Well—he isn't in the world any more...
...Never before had Business Men's Associations and Chambers of Commerce spread themselves so handsomely to light up the Downtown District and the Neighborhood Shopping Centers...
...Does God have a birthday, too...
...And parents replied, "Why, yes, of course it's Christmas...
...Everybody exchanged presents with everybody who had exchanged presents with everybody else...
...News & World Report...
...It happened at different times in different families, when the unwrapping of presents was at its all-time height...
...No—God doesn't...
...That was all...
...He's God's son," said her mother...
...said Kimmy...
...Because it is Jesus' birthday...
...Now the heavens had man-made stars to guide shepherds to stables...
...Why...
...No...
...Christmas didn't come...
...Can I play with him...
...nobody came, and if anybody had come there wouldn't have been anybody anywhere to let them into the halls and the theaters and the churches, and the tables weren't set...
...Maybe it was all the noise that drowned out the singing...
...Or anything at all...
...Inside it said: Wherever You Look: The Earth Beset by Worry and Strife...
...Grownups stopped unwrapping, and looked at each other, and then around...
...In the stillness children in many houses said, "It is Christmas, isn't it...
...said her mother...
...It just wasn't Christmas...
...It wasn't no?-Christmas...
...Oh, we have the party for him...
...The General Manager said he'd let the department head know...
...One oldest child had an automobile wrapped as a Christmas package...
...Many glasses and some bottles were broken in taverns and homes and offices...
...Never before had so many bells rung out so loudly...
...What...
...Lunchrooms were crowded...
...That's not right...
...But nobody noticed it...
...It wasn't Christmas," said Kimmy...
...Maybe there is no way to say it...
...Children, who had their presents all unwrapped already, put their presents down and looked at the grownups, and then, seeing the grownups looking around, looked around themselves...
...N—no...
...Of course there were end-of-the-world cranks...
...According to the Hooper Rating, the TV had a record audience on Christmas Eve...
...You mean he's dead...
...Mommy," said Kimmy, with a question mark...
...Others took in a late movie beforehand...
...God's what...
...Nobody went calling, and nobody on whom they might have gone calling expected them...
...Many people agreed that the Red menace to the Free World was at its most menacing but many were of the President's opinion that we would soon achieve intellectual parity with the Red hordes by replacing education with technology...
...The only thing that was at all out of the way—speaking of cranks—was the absence of the usual Christmas Eve claim that Mrs...
...He heard the herald angels sing...
...Kimmy was put to bed in her room in a regular house with wall-to-wall carpeting in a regular town of regular size by a regular mother whose husband had a regular job in a factory that had a regular Defense Department sub-contract...
...Mommy," said Kimmy, "what's Christmas...
...Is that who cares about Jesus...
...God doesn't," said Kimmy...
...Grandmothers dusted and grandfathers got out their tools to work on the clock they'd been working on...
...It was a regular day...
...I don't know how to say it...
...And when had mankind been so well equipped to overcome them...
...Not that the churches were empty...
...Why," said her mother, "it's the day we get presents and have Christmas trees and all...
...They said that we Americans should be glad because Christ came to save sinners and we Americans were all sinners and Communism threatened the American way of life...
...In many houses the father got up and went into the kitchen and looked at the calendar on the wall or took a calendar card out of his wallet and looked at it...
...Never before had there been so many merry-makers on the streets or so many carolers going from house to house, young and old...
...But when hadn't there been...
...Children put their presents away and looked for their galoshes and school books...
...and even the rich were far from their all-time miser-ablest this Christmas Eve, because the Sputnik boom had sent the market back up...
...The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the cost of living had also reached an all-time high, but union wages were also at an all-time high, and liberal-minded middle-class people without union contracts were at their all-time happiest because they had fought the good fight for the unions...
...Over him shone a star until Christmas Day...
...Why not...
...No...
...Doesn't he want anybody to do anything for him...
...The next day was the 25th...
...Dishes rattled...
...Why don't we get presents and have Christmas trees and all every day...
...Jones of Grantham's Corners or Mr...
...The name of l< The Day It Wasn't Ibristmas this crank magazine was U.S...
...But nobody said anything about it at all...
...Now go to sleep...
...It was the first Christmas in history that nobody claimed to have heard them, but nobody noticed except the Crank Editor, himself a crank whose stuff rarely got in the paper...
...And nobody said anything about it...
...No...
...And international understanding had been extended to a new all-time outreach by the opening of the Voice of America's broadcasting station—the biggest ever directed at the Iron Curtain—in Rome...
...No one denied that there were difficulties in the world...
...Maybe it was the bells...
...Many people went from parties...
...The non-Christian press agreed...
...If I was Jesus and I didn't want anything and nobody gave me a present, I wouldn't have a party...
...They'd thought it was going to be Christmas, and it wasn't...
...Everybody who was anybody went to midnight mass, including Protestants...
...said Kimmy...
...But Jesus does...
...Nobody said anything about it, any more than anybody would say anything about it on any other day...
...on its front cover...
...Like any sensible mother when children ask questions at bed-time, Kimmy's mother didn't want to begin a conversation at that hour...
...Maybe it was all the wassail...
...Nothing...
...And the liberal American Catholic Commonweal said that "those who would have the United States renounce the search for still more advanced weapons and call the world to peace . . . would increase rather than lessen the ultimate danger of global war...
...A department head in a department store sent a clerk to the Office of the General Manager to find out if they should begin their post-Christmas Inventory...
...He's—he's something like God," said her mother...
...That's not right, either...
...Doesn't he want anything for Christmas...
...The teachers and children all went to school...
...You know what...
...On the 25 th people got up—or had to get up—early even if they were tired or headachy because their children had new bicycles, new trains, new rocking horses, new dolls, new money, and even, among some of the oldest children, new automobiles...
...But he didn't...
...Why not, if it's his birthday...
...In the North there were jet planes screaming, and in the South firecrackers exploding in the old Southern tradition of firecrackers at Christmas...
...When it was my birthday, I wouldn't have it...
...It wasn't Christmas for mothers who (like Kimmy's) love their children, or for friends who remember their friends, or for wise men or shepherds or kings, or for famous philanthropists or famous heroes, or for winners or losers of Nobel Prizes or Stalin Prizes or national or local elections or horse races or quiz contests...
...All the stores and factories opened, and the street cars and buses were filled and the thruways and freeways and parkways and turnpikes were crowded and the downtown parking lots put up their "Full" signs...
...And parents said, "Why, yes, it always has been...
...But nobody claimed to have heard the herald angels...
...If nobody cared about me," said Kimmy, "I wouldn't care about anybody...
...said Kimmy...
...The Russians and the Americans said that science had conquered superstition at last...
...It's just that it wasn't Christmas...
...People on the street and in church porticos slapped each other on the back and called out, "Mer-ry Christmasl" Many people fell down as they did so...
...The new tranquilizers passed their predicted sales peak, but the Knickerbocker Savings & Loan Association had billboards all over New York showing a savings account book with the slogan, "Still the Best Tranquilizer," and many people agreed...
...Christmas-day parties and matinees and dinners were not called off...
...ABC had a rabbi on...
...Something didn't happen...
...It wasn't Christmas...
...What is it, dear...
...In the afternoon children came home from school and women from shopping and at evening men came home from work, and everyone ate and did the dishes and read the paper and put the children to bed and went to bed...
...Husbands said, "I guess I'll be getting down to the office...
...Well, dear—there's nothing he wants...
Vol. 22 • January 1958 • No. 1
