Peggy Dover

Is Christmas ahead of its time again this year? Or, is my calendar a misprint?

As I write this one week out, I still have gifts to wrap, stocking stuffers to buy, and wassail to wass. So, I guess I’m right on schedule, because this is where I always land with my yuletide endeavors at this time juncture.

It didn’t help that a week or so ago, my neighbor Susan called to “see how I was doing.” Uh huh. Her list of accomplishments was legion.

She had shipped all her packages for this Christmas before Easter, had several gross of cookies and a few three-layer cakes in the freezer. She’d fashioned hand-made gifts for her kith and kin before breakfast. Oh, and Christmas cards were sent sometime around Halloween containing letters with a complete rundown in rhyming iambic pentameter of her family’s doings and their pets. You know I never exaggerate.

During her spare time, she had taken up sculpting, for which she had won a gold plaque in the International Sculpting Competition in Copenhagen for her first effort — a 10-foot diorama made up of woodland creatures, a Bigfoot family, fir trees and mushrooms. His Majesty King Frederik X dropped by their house the other day to congratulate her and bestow upon her the National Medal of Highest Acclaim but, alas, I was daydreaming, twiddling my thumbs, and missed it.

Ah, Christmas Day.

Charles Dickens immortalized Christmas in “A Christmas Carol,” a solid-gold classic we never seem to tire of refashioning into one form or another.

As the former miser frolics in soul-reclaimed joy, Scrooge asks a small boy on the street what day it is. The boy answers, “What day?” (incredulous at anyone not knowing) “Why, it’s Christmas Day!”

Dickens had a heart for the downtrodden, as he had watched his own family and others struggling in the severe conditions of 19th-century London. He was acquainted with debtor’s prison, his father having spent time there. His famous novella was first published on this day in 1843. An initial 6,000-copy run had sold out by Christmas Eve. I wonder how he did it without a marketing team. I mean, no Facebook? No Instagram? Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Oh, wait.

Anyway, word of its appeal spread somehow, and the spirits accomplished what they were sent out to do — force people to think beyond their money-changing hole. Dickens and Queen Victoria had a huge influence on Christmas being celebrated at all. It wasn’t until department stores took hold that materialism became the focus, with quality often being sacrificed to quantity.

Since childhood, classic movies have been a key part of my celebration. When Mrs. Walker in “Miracle on 34th Street” tells a worried Kris Kringle, “Christmas is still Christmas.” He answers, “Oh, Christmas is more than a day. It’s a frame of mind.”

Who can forget the beginning of “A Christmas Story,” when an adult Ralphie lays it on the line for us all, and we remember. “Christmas was on its way. Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas, around which the entire kid year revolved.”

I was odd as a child, too. I never wanted to know what I was getting. I never peeked, savoring the anticipation of the grand day like a cherry Lifesaver, almost more than the arrival. Because then, all the lovely traditions and feels would end, and school would resume. Most depressing. New toys would help assuage the malaise, but the joy of communion faded somewhat.

After the movies have ended, the last maple pecan shortbread cookie eaten, the tree removed and the lights taken down, I still have a place to go where longing is wholly understood. Though I don’t know the details or even the exact date, I believe that over 2,000 years ago there was a baby born in difficult surroundings with a price on his head. In the dead of night, I can imagine him crying — he who became a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief so that we may be comforted with hope.

“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”

Editor’s Note Peggy Dover’s “Rogue Wanderer” column will return Jan. 2. {related_content_uuid}f7e36888-3798-439a-9ee1-24ac2690ae43{/related_content_uuid}

Peggy Dover’s “Rogue Wanderer” column will return Jan. 2.