Ho, Ho ... Ho?

                                                       ... and on earth peace, goodwill ...
                                                                                Luke 2:14
 
    We've had a little dust-up in our town. One of our big shopping malls decided to update the setting where Santa makes his appearances. They replaced the Christmas tree with a high-tech, interactive replica of a glacier. Howls went up, and mall management soon promised to return the tree.
    'Tis the season when peace and goodwill can be episodically scant.  Absent a major new wrinkle in the fabric of space-time, we'll soon see disputes over manger scenes, and more wrangles over the use and even the nomenclature of symbolic holiday trees.  Some folks will complain that the proper spirit of the holidays has been compromised by materialism. Others will push back against religious overtones.
    My friend Harry watches with wry amusement. He likes to consider himself an armchair philosopher. Harry says some of the stuff that goes on during the holidays is like a family squabble.
    Being human, Harry does have Christmas grumbles of his own. Being a philosopher, Harry favors grumbles that are thoughtful. One of them features The Panhandlers. These are the people with bells and buckets who post themselves at public entrances and, with relentlessly cheerful demeanor, challenge passers-by to proceed without giving. Harry is especially irked by those whose station outside liquor stores implies doctrinal disapproval of demon rum.
    He responds with an animated refusal to give. He embraces his supply of demon rum and answers the bell-ringer's hearty greeting with an aggressively hearty one of his own. Harry says that neither one of them really means it. Deep down, the bell-ringer thinks Harry is a heathen skinflint. Not so deep down, Harry hopes the bell-ringer's feet are cold.
    Harry is not, in fact, a heathen skinflint. He is a churchman. He has his own spiritual concept of the season, and doesn't want bell-ringers pushing theirs upon him. In this, he says, he can see the desire of irreligious friends to celebrate the season in their own way.  But being a philosopher, Harry adds a caveat:  The proselytizing impulse points in all directions; those friends who like to skip religious notions would be happier if he did, too.
    And so goes the season. Holiday stresses, they test us, every one. We expect that public venues will be flooded with treacly music; that one neighbor couple will festoon their house with garish lights. We know that Uncle Wilbur will have too much eggnog and drone the same old stories. Aunt Pearl's Jello salad will be dreadful.  Cousin Fawn's children will be impossible. The in-laws will keep score on our time with them. And what, oh what, to give cranky old Grandma?
    Still, as Harry might say, you can't have a family squabble unless you have a family. Perhaps our Christmas grumbles are like Uncle Wilbur's stories: Tiresome but also comfortably familiar. Yes, I wish one house in our neighborhood did not resemble an Interstate truck stop at night, but I drive by to see it anyway. Yes, I wish that Frosty and Rudolph would run far away together. But not until my grandchildren have grown up.
    The unifying thread in all the holiday kerfuffle is this: Most of us, in our own chosen way, care. I'll take the season in all its various parts.
    And I'll give Grandma a gift card. She'll like the control.