Have yourself a merry little Christmas

This is the song for this strange Christmas in this strange year. Here's an interesting story about how the lyrics came about. I think Judy Garland was right, that first set of lyrics don’t quite work, and the Frank Sinatra version is good, but the one Garland sang in Meet Me in St Louis is the better one.

There’s lots of talk about how this year we can’t get together, but next year, hopefully, things will be different, back to normal. And hopefully that is true, but there are people for whom every year is like this year, a lonely time, filled with sadness and a sense of unwantedness, a sense of not belonging anywhere, feeling as unwelcome as the Holy Family on that first Christmas Eve. Some of that may be their own doing, of course, but how much, I wonder, is simply a lack of generosity on the part of others, or a lack of thoughtfulness, no one bothering to ask, “will you come here and spend Christmas with us? How much is bad luck, life just not quite working out?

When I worked on the hospice ward at the VAMC I cared for a lot of patients for whom life just didn’t quite work out. Some of them, yes, had burned every bridge, most of them, though, were just nearly alone, not completely, but just enough that they were forgotten on holidays. They lived on the periphery of other people’s lives. One man, one of my favorite patients, had two devoted nieces who would come every week and on holiday mornings to spend time with him. They brought him gifts and fussed over him, sat their children on his lap and sang songs with him. It was lovely. Sadly, though, most of the patients did not have this. They had occasional visitors, but never on holidays. They had only us, the nurses and the staff, A Wonderful Life on the television, a few slices of turkey with gravy served on plastic trays. Not much really, despite the limbs lost in battle, the PTSD, the sacrifices.

There’s a scene in the movie Brooklyn, one of the best scenes in the movie. The main character, Eilis, is far from home, living in New York. On Christmas Day, she volunteers at the church to feed the homeless men who’ve got nowhere to go for Christmas dinner. Fr. Glynn leans in and says, “these are the men who built the tunnels, the bridges, the highways. God alone knows what they live on now.”

Here’s a link to the song, Casadh an tSúgáin, with the lyrics in Irish and English. And below is the scene. It’s pretty much a perfect scene, showing the loneliness not just of the forgotten men who built the tunnels and bridges, but of Eilis as well, even though she has a place to go for Christmas dinner, has friends and family, even though she seems fine. She’s still lonesome, heartbroken. May we remember today all those who live on God knows what, those who are alone and lonely. May we welcome them, give them a place at the table, a room at the inn.