Bells Will Be Ringing

On dixie cups, holiday movies and the power of intangibles.

This is positively the last year I’m sending Christmas cards. I lost my sense of taste after licking envelopes for two hours. At least it gave me the chance to watch “Miracle on 34th Street,” one of my all-time favorites. The 1947 classic, not the remake starring Elizabeth Perkins, that guy from “The Practice,” and some little girl who was decidedly not Natalie Wood.

This is Natalie Wood, not that other little girl.

This Christmas feels a little different, given that in just a couple of weeks we will have a psychopath back in the White House again which, depending on how you look at it, could be bad or could be exciting. Like, I wonder what he’s going to do next! He’s so unpredictable! I’ve never felt more alive than I do right now!

Mostly though, it’s going to be a rough few years, replete with mass deportations, trampling of civil rights and personal freedoms, a national ban on immunizations, a national measles outbreak and an entire Cabinet more suited to guest star on “The Love Boat” than take on matters of national security.

Here’s the thing. We live in a screwed up world. But at Christmas, I try to find simple things that make me smile. When I was driving yesterday, I passed a Honda Odyssey with antlers stuck on it and I’m like, MAN, you almost had me! I thought you were an actual reindeer! Or when the Amazon man came and I excitedly opened our door while trying to keep the dog in the house when he bit me on the leg. (The dog, not the Amazon man. That would be weird.) Turned out to be a serious puncture wound. Oh, life. So wacky!

Every year when I get out our Christmas decorations, I’m amazed once again that The Bells are intact. I made them in kindergarten out of dixie cups, squares of holly berry red and green fabric, yarn and tiny little bells THAT STILL RING. It is simply impossible that they have survived, year after year, driving from state to state, most likely wedged in between my butterfly chair and the plastic door of my Saturn.

Still ringing.

I realize they’re nothing fancy. I’ve never been “artistic” or “creative” or especially “talented.” But they make me happy. Two little dixie cups held together with yarn and tarnished bells. Do you think five-year-old Eileen would’ve ever thought that all these years later, they’d still be around? Do you think five-year-old Eileen was thinking about anything other than her Strawberry Shortcake dolls and Baskin-Robbins clown cones?

As Fred Gailey of 34th famously said, “Faith is believing things when common sense tells you not to. Don't you see? It's kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles.” (I do apologize for the sappiness of quoting a holiday movie. At least it wasn’t from the insufferable “Love Actually.”)

So here’s to the intangibles, like the simple things that somehow endure year after year. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year. Thank you for reading.