Short Story Review || Merry Christmas (1917)
"Disillusionment, hopelessness, and horror are rife when a despondent author gets a visit by Father Time and Father Christmas, who come to raise his spirits."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
There is seldom humanity loves more than nostalgia. Cursing through veins like semantics in a sentence, the propensity of remembering what once was & how much better it was remains fondled in the tender caress of the modern age. Wherein societies have found it their leisure to menagerie with such defiant memories, one cannot say for certain. What remains true is that, no matter the century or generation of people, their culture or ethnicity, society at writ large prefers the grass that remains green as memorabilia consumed by moss.
“Don't you know that there has always been Christmas?”
This story was chosen specifically so that I could publish a review on Christmas day that felt thematically appropriate. The month, as it stands, has not necessarily been filled with the holiday cheer that I have known in years gone by. I would be lying if I said that there weren’t times in which I found myself wandering back down memory lane to the Christmases of my childhood & the soothing lights of the moments I will never regain.
Like with most things, memories are never purely reliable, as one might long to believe. The Christmases I recall as being warm & bright took place during years of my youth that would not be categorized as such. For the adults in my life, the celebration might well have combined sentiments that are quite similar to what I feel today at my ripe age.
When looking back, it is important to quantify the feeling of nostalgia in terms we might grasp with firm hands in the present. Why were things so magical now that they have passed?
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Although I was not necessarily eager to read a charming Christmas story, I felt it was my responsibility to try one nonetheless. I cannot help but appreciate the tinges of cranberry-style sweetness that seep into the tales of miracles, midnight visitations, & wandering imagery that colour the horizon for generations to come. I was semi-hopeful that Leacock would present me with a story that was supple in lore, longing, & Christmas magic.
What I found instead was a rather more lucid tale of post-WWI Canada. Having not encountered Leacock before, I found myself on the periphery of something I could not quite grasp but which had been made clear to me thanks to my scholastic exposure to the topic.
Readers who endeavour into this story as naively as I had might also find within it the author’s failure to make clear that the story was written for anyone by himself. I suppose, when all is said & done, I cannot quite fault him for this, given the circumstances.
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In essence, this is a story about a male author who has come to find that Christmas does not have the familiar, fond, warm feeling that it once did. The reader comes to learn that on the eve of Christmas day, the author is visited by Father Time, who introduces Father Christmas—an entity who is utterly despondent as a result of the death of thousands of children who once drew forth & enlivened the spirit of Christmas.
Readers may view these interactions as shallow; I would agree. Father Time acts as a mediator between Father Christmas & the author, never really explaining how it came to be that the author should shelter the current generation of children so that the magic of Christmas might be regained.
Here, I pause specifically because I am conflicted as to the end goal. I wonder whether there is room for the Christianity from which the birth of Jesus plays a celebratory role on December 25th or whether Saint Nicholas of Myra had wandered the earth, communicating directly from heaven to humanity.
Leacock seems to have written this story with a particular necessity pulsing through his tendons. Although questions of the religious or traditional impacts & value of Christmas are important, the main character does not endeavour to reflect on these at all. Rather, similarly to Leacock himself, the main character reflects on how devastatingly the world has changed. Whereas once the importance of society, community, solidarity, & peace fostered a sense of safety & purity in the world, these perceptions were permanently altered with the declaration of WWI.
In this sense, a reader may acknowledge that the main character is validated by his nostalgia. The world of his youth was very different than that of post-WWI & there is seldom that can be said to soften the blow of such devastating social change. Therefore, perhaps the introduction of neutral characters such as Father Time & Father Christmas was done intentionally to ensure that readers would be able to absorb the weight of what Leacock was transcribing.
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Although I found the starkly swift introduction rather sharp-edged, readers may not be on this for very long. The purpose of this story seems to focus on the essence of healing a society that has been brazen by a blade sharpened by one’s own hands. Will readers have an answer to this question? Might they view the main character as a man naïve to the ever-flowing ways of society that will never cease changing, never fail to rise to the violent challenge of battle, & rave hurrahs at the gallivanting urge to purge the world of otherness?
There is certainly a place for the story’s commentary. The main character ponders the essence of Christmas as a time meant for love & kindness, whereas the world around him has made clear its desire to be anything but kind & loving.
What is perhaps a sad irony is Father Time’s decided declaration that the children who perished in WWI did not die in vain. Knowing, as he must, that so few years later, hundreds of thousands upon thousands of children would die brutal deaths, in vain. Perhaps it is not for me to make such a claim, but I cannot help but feel perturbed that Father Time would so brazenly make a statement that ignores the reality these children faced, which was entirely avoidable.
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Here, we come to the point in the narrative that has given rise to pensiveness. Readers well-versed in current events may view their society as quaintly placed within this story. The cruelty that Father Christmas knows took the lives of the children he adored is beating like a freshly blooming heart in a land where no man should cross.
A perusal through this section of hope, wherein the main character is asked to shelter the children so that innocence may once again be achieved, haunts the story like a plague; nowhere in the future the reader knows is coming, has this been made possible for the masses.
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Surely, readers may wish to ask questions that will never be answered. Will the main character find his love of Christmas once more & will the children in the post-WWI world be able to imagine a world where they are free to wander fields of lilies, poppies, & roses without pensive prose granted to the bodies buried underneath their feet?
No matter the nationality of the child, the necessity for peace prevails above all things. The spirit of nostalgic Christmases seeping through the short tale will allow readers the fond familiarity of their circumstances & perhaps they may take the request to heart & offer themselves to the task of granting the innocent lives on earth a fair chance at survival.
Flourishing within the garden of this story is the truth, yet to be known by the main character or the author, but which, I suspect, they feared may become real.
Therefore, what is to become of such a tale in a world where the simple value of its structure is somewhat lost in the grotesque imagery that is propagated across the globe? Perhaps Christmas means more than the bows, the tree, the smell of baked goods & freshly stuffed turkey. Perhaps the meaning of the gathering on tender winter’s eve is meant to incite in humanity the warmth it chases & sullies upon rainy autumn eves.
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Ultimately, this story was not one I would recommend. It provides an interesting glimpse into the reflective nature of our species & the wayward approach of a man who wishes to regain what he has lost, a practice that most may appreciate for its casual flow in their own lives. Yet, while the daylight breaks to welcome Christmas morning, one is left wondering whether the house is empty or if the man has wandered to a space where he cannot be alone. What becomes of the adult who has left behind the land of bombs?
I suppose that one thing worth keeping close at hand is the intermingled reality of our kin. No matter the years or hours passed toiled by the clock, humanity may feel comforted by the redundant nature of their behaviour, that one day soon, they too may find themselves wandering the night with Father Time, speaking niceties to Father Christmas who mourns the loss of children killed by strange apathetic woes.
If you would like to read this story, please visit this link — « Merry Christmas » by Stephen Leacock
C. 💌