Christmas: A Defense

In defending Christmas I have nothing to say about Jesus Christ, a terrifying and influential historical figure who, I confess, has had little impact on my life.[2] My Christmas, the Christmas I have known, revolves centrally around objects—most crucially around presents and then secondarily around things like Christmas trees, ornaments, decorations, advent calendars, etc.[3]

I have a particularly vivid memory of a childhood Christmas during which my sister would stalk[4] the Christmas tree day after day counting presents. On the final day she made a stack[5] in the middle of the room. On one side were the presents with her name on them and on the other, those with mine. She tallied them up[6]. The number was not to her liking. I can still picture the stunned calm[7] as she counted and counted again. It was clear that my pile was two presents larger than hers. I think it was the “two” that really bothered her. A difference of one is one thing, a difference of two is quite another. When there was nothing more to be done she gathered herself up, collected her faculties, and then proceeded to throw an epic and violent fit.[8] Right there. She screamed and raged, she tore paper and hurled objects.[9] She dashed her head, as only she could, on the kitchen floor, her beautiful blond curls bouncing up and down against the tile and mixing with the tears and saliva.[10] She grunted[11] things that couldn’t be understood. I say again that this is one of the clearest memories of my childhood.

In my 20s, living in that odd no man's land of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I stumbled onto[12] the L Train station in the evening during a snow storm. A smattering of people stood on the platform waiting for the train.[13] A hearty woman was singing Christmas carols in high operatic fashion as a rather more gnarled gentleman accompanied on his accordion.[14] It was probably the exact temperature in the air, and the way it carried her voice, and the sound of the accordion around and around the underground chamber[15]. The train came and no one got on it. No one said anything. We just stood there, we could do no other.

Walter Benjamin once wrote about his fear of clocks and the marching homogenous units of time they represent.[16] He wrote of fighters during the July Revolution[17] who suddenly turned their guns on the clock towers, trying to freeze the day, to get as much as they possibly could from those moments beyond the normal flow of history. There is no figure with a greater hold on the childhood imagination than Santa Claus.[18] We have given him extraordinary powers. He has mastery, for a night, that isn’t exactly a night really, over space and time itself, the very fundaments[19] for the possibility of anything else. The Greek god of time, Chronos, is an elemental god, more powerful than the Olympians, more primal than the deities who control things on land and sea and earth and sky.[20] But Santa is his own logic and purpose for one infinite night every year.

I remember that there were always advent calendars. They were their own form of torture in that they seemed to progress so very, very slowly. After the 15th, it was as if each day refused to end, refused to give way to the next morning. We wanted to destroy the night. Opening each door in the morning was a pleasure. My sister and I would do it slowly, with a sense of the sacred[21]. When I went away to college a package came at the end of November. I opened it. There was an advent calendar inside. I called my sister. She had one too. Later, my parents split up and then divorced and certain things from the past seemed now sealed in the past forever. But then late November would come and a package would come. It was only then that I noticed that the packages were from my father. I had an image suddenly of my sister and me crouched in front of the advent calendar slowly opening one of the doors as my father stood behind us, unnoticed, silently looking on. Every late November for years and years now, there is a package. And there is an advent calendar from my father.

Vocabulary

1. defense: <美>= <英> defence，辩护，支持。动词形式为defend。

2. terrifying: 令人恐惧的；influential: 有影响力的；confess: 承认。

3. revolve around: 围绕，以……为重要目的；crucially: 关键性地，及其；secondarily: 其次；ornament: 装饰物，点缀品；advent calendar: 圣诞日历，是一种可以吃的日历，共有24个小格子，里面装有巧克力，从12月1日起，小孩子每天打开一格，吃掉一块巧克力，全部吃完了以后，就到圣诞节了。

4. stalk: 跟踪，此处指姐姐悄悄点数圣诞树上的礼物。

5. stack: 垛，堆。

6. tally up: 计算，合计。

7. stunned calm: 指吃惊后强忍保持镇静。

8. 确认再没什么可做之后，她重振精神，镇定下来，开始了一场壮阔的狂怒大爆发。

9. rage: 发怒；hurl: 扔，甩。

10. dash: 使猛烈撞击；blond curls: 金黄色的卷发；bounce: 弹起；tile: 瓷砖；saliva: 口水。

11. grunt: 嘟哝。

12. stumble onto: 碰巧走到。

13. smattering: 寥寥几个；platform: 站台。

14. Christmas carol: 圣诞颂歌；in high operatic fashion: 带着浓重的戏剧腔；gnarled:（皮肤、手等）多皱纹的，饱经风霜的；accordion: 手风琴。

15. underground chamber: 此处应指火车站的地下通道。

16. Walter Benjamin: 瓦尔特•本杰明（1892—1940），德国文艺评论家；marching homogenous units of time: 不断向前的、单调的时间单位。

17. July Revolution: 七月革命，指1830年7月法国推翻复辟的波旁王朝，拥戴路易•菲利浦登上王位的革命。

18. hold: 把握力，控制力；Santa Claus: 圣诞老人。

19. fundament: 基础。

20. elemental: 基本的，基础的；Olympians: 奥林匹斯山诸神，指宙斯、波塞冬、阿波罗等古希腊神话诸神；primal: 最初的，根本的；deity: 神。

21. sacred: 神圣的，受尊敬的。