The Christmas Zone: Where time stands still

The countdown is on. Today is the 19th Day of Advent, symbolizing a “day of preparation, celebration, and anticipation for Christmas.” A good day to go shopping, you think?

I mean, the holiday to beat all holidays is less than one week away, so if you haven’t got your rein-ducks in order, you still have time to fill that metaphorical Santa bag. Otherwise, we’re on the verge of the winter tilt, astronomically speaking, the shortest daylight day of the year, and I’m talking less than 10 hours.

Sunday is the first day of winter, or to be specific, the winter solstice - that period when the sun appears to be standing still. The important thing is that starting Monday the hours of daylight will start getting longer and - look out - we’re on our way to spring, and the five seasons start all over again: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Christmas.

Really, if you think about it, the season of Christmas is a thing unto itself. I guess you could also call it the Holiday Season, considering that folks also celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Yuletide. So, if you start counting the days from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day to the Epiphany on the twelfth day of Christmas, it runs into a couple of months. Practically a season all its own.

There are parties and festivities and the like, and last weekend I found myself at one such get-together. I’m generally not a party-oriented person but I wdo love meeting new people. My problem is not knowing when to shut my mouth. You know, when you think you’re saying something wise and insightful, and it dawns on you that the other person is starting to glance around.

Nevertheless, the party was convivial and low stress.

This being said, it’s apropos that we’re now in Halcyon Days, the 14 days surrounding the winter solstice, a time of happiness, peace and contentment. According to Greek mythology, the halcyon – the kingfisher – builds its floating nest at this time, during which Zeus had promised calm seas for the nesting and hatching time.

So here we are; the winter solstice days are the days with the fewest hours of sunlight during the whole year. But hey, like anything else, it’s not quite that simple.

The degree of darkness varies according to how far north you are. As for the time the clock reads at sunset - this also depends on how far east or west your home sits relative to the time zone.

Drive just an hour east from here, say around Carrizozo, and the sun sets ten minutes earlier. For you flat-earthers, that’s because going east around the Earth’s curve makes the western horizon appear to block the sun sooner.

Be that as it may, I’ve always thought of Christmas Day as when time stands still.

Christmas Day in those days of my youth was a thing separate from all reality.

You forgot what day of the week it was because nothing else mattered but just being at home, making a wrapping paper mess on the floor, and eating homemade popcorn balls and my mother’s divinity candy.

All stores were closed, even gas stations. If you needed batteries, well, you should’ve thought about that yesterday. And the local radio station played nothing but carols and hymns, at least until noon.

The record changer on the family hi-fi was stacked with the music of the Nutcracker Suite, Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, and carols sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Our parents had us faithfully watch Midnight Mass on TV, as well as Amahl and the Night Visitors and the more secular The Gift of the Magi. Indeed, those were the days before Charlie Brown’s Christmas, the one with the Grinch and all the other holiday kids’ shows.

Music hasn’t changed all that much since then. Most of the songs we hear on TV and radio commercials are still, for the most part, the traditional ones.

Although someone is putting out a new Christmas song every year, the traditional songs are the best, with carols like Away in a Manger, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, and Joy to the World going back well into the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Even the more recent The Little Drummer Boy, written in 1941, has become a standard. If it wasn’t such a well-written song it wouldn’t have lasted these 83 years, and it has a great hook, as they say in the music biz. It was first recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Family Singers (of the Sound of Music fame) and has been covered by everybody from the Bing Crosby-David Bowie duet to Johnny Cash to Ringo Starr.

Even Jimi Hendrix …

Yep, “pa-rum-pum-pum-pum” with a whammy bar and wah-wah pedal.