once upon a time a long time ago, my daughter had a doll named neither Barbie nor Strawberry Shortcake but otherwise was like any other little girl's doll in Istanbul. I think her name was Vivian? Megan? At any rate, my 4-yr-old daughter, Alexandra, was completely satisfied with the wealth of wardrobe enjoyed by her doll, but she had nothing to put all those doll crinolines in when Megan went to bed and so needed -- for Christmas -- a suitcase. (Megan had written it in her letter to Santa.) At the same time, Alexandra's Sunday School was preoccupied with the religious story of Christmas, to which end the visiting English padre (bearded as any proper Santa Claus -- or Heavenly Father, for that matter -- would be) had come to explain to all the children the lovely story of the Nativity --
& not unnaturally. Alexandra had all of Christmastime's Principal Players mixed up and that would be all of my comments on Debbie's comments on Christmas, although I might have added comments in re: last week's NYT editorial, commenting upon all the lovely layers of belief upon which Lewis bases Narnia....and all of these comments would have agreed with Deb's excellent comments as Christmas is indeed, a bittersweet event -- except I wanted to add
that we are programmed, genetically, I think (Claudia, you are the expert) to take all our holidays with a Grain of Salt, to add to any expectationa sense of forboding brittle hope, which was mostly in Alex's facial expression not in her words, of course, and --
I don't know what in the world I am talking about....
Except I am panicked, packing for Christmas in Boston, where the youngest among us will be 13 (Alex's daughter, Elizabeth)worried that we will somehow all be disappointed (like there won't be enough suitcases to go around, or I've chosen the wrong suitcase for one of us --)
MERRY CHRISTMAS , Andrew, Bill, Debbie, Claudia!
I love you all, and I will never never knowingly (aye, there's the rub) bring you the wrong suitcase,
Hilary
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