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Show C-jQ by Teri Gomes The spirit of Christmas Present and Christmas presents By now, most adults have read numerous articles and seen dozens of documentaries about holiday depression, or just moodiness of the season. I think it's fair to say there is a great contradiction in the hurriedness of the holidays, and the time for private reflection of Christmases past. In pulling out the box of Christmas decorations my children fight to find The Angel. No sterling silver heirloom or blown glass creation, The Angel could hardly be defined as anything fancy. It is made from the tiniest brass bell on top of which sits a little round wood ball the size of a pea. The face is painted on, and fading, and the hair consists of few pieces of straw. The Angel is the first ornament to go on the tree each year. The first year I was married it was the only store-bought store-bought decoration on our coffee table-top table-top tree. Oh, there were cranberries and popcorn bloodied when I stuck , my finger with the needle to used string it and then, just The Angel. That was more than a dozen years ago. Two non-Santa believers, a divorce, divor-ce, several moves and a remarriage later, The Angel is still special. I think we all love it because it represents a certain tradition, a continuity, a con nection that we hold dear. It is always a tender, peaceful moment when The Angel goes on the tree. And peace is on all our minds a lot these days. Hallmark and their many competitors com-petitors find thousands of glittery ways to say, "Peace on earth, goodwill to men." Many people, my daughter included, sent off Christmas messages before Thanksgiving as part of the KSL Mission Marines project, to send a little lit-tle holiday cheer to Beirut in time for Christmas. She has received no response. Now she is concerned. "Do you think the Marine who got my present is the one they have captured? cap-tured? Or one who was killed Sunday?" Sun-day?" I cannot answer her. I can only tell her the gold foil embossed em-bossed card we received today proclaiming "Peace on earth" means Lebanon, El Salvador and Nicaragua too. ' And I feel odd that, at ten years old, she is watching the Six O'clock News and asking me these questions. As college veterans of the late Sixties and early Seventies, so many of us thought by now we would be fighting for great things, solving meaningful cases and writing deep novels, as the recent hit movie The Big Chill so humorously points out. , But we are a different generation of parents. After all, we hummed "Teach your children well" in the back of many a van, didn't we? 1 mk this weekend we'll dig out that box of decorations. It strikes a vein with me that perhaps this week it would seryeus welltojind The Angel. Cause I'm tired of listening to endless end-less lists of "I wanf's and I'm already sick of holiday commercials inat imply I'm not giving my child a tair shot at college (or at life) unless he nas the right name brand computer. Years ago Dylan sang 'Thelimes, they are a 'changing." They are changing still. But if I dig out The Angel, if we can share a tender, peaceful moment, I can convince myself there is much to be said for tradition. Christmas presents temporarily tem-porarily take the back burner when Christmas present is linked with tnnstmas past. And just that moment gives me hope for Christmas future ... |