Home's the Place for Christmas

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
December 20, 1958


   I'LL BE HOME for Christmas--and glad to be there. None of this honking down the pike to Aunt Mary's for me , risking my neck in holiday traffic and wearing myself out driving. Aunt Mary lives too far away, and her mince pie isn't good enough to lure me from the fireside.
   Christmas is a home day and Christmas Eve a home evening. I have children and grandchildren I'd love to be with but don't hanker to see them and don't want them to come and see me.

   THIS sounds heartless and demands explaining. Had my wife and I only ourselves to consider we might be induced to hit the road for the holidays. But we have a 10-year-old who associates Christmas with home. He would kick like a mule if he had to be away.
   Our grandchildren are of similar mind. They love us dearly, I assume, but our home is not their home. They want the thrill of being tucked into their own beds. They want to imagine the reindeer on their own roof. They want Santa to come down their chimney. They want to gather at their own tree next morning and observe their own Christmas customs.

   CHILDREN get too much jouncing around at all seasons. I have yet to see one with much tolerance for long travel, irregular and unfamiliar meals and strange beds. And Christmas gets such a big and early buildup now that young ones are half sick from excitement by the time the day arrives. To be pushed and pulled through pre-Christmas crowds is no boon to their health, either.
   There is always the chance, too, that a moppet will go south with too hefty a piece of fruitcake on the big day and suffer sharp and insistent misery in the midriff. If he's going to be sick, he's better off being sick at home.

NOT  NORMAL FOR CHRISTMAS

   TO ME the ideal Christmas Day is leisurely and undemanding. At our place breakfast is an uncertain, catch-as-catch-can, serve yourself affair. That's how we prefer it. It usually comes about 10 a.m. after the gifts are opened.
   We set no store in bountiful Christmas dinners. Unless guests are coming and expect them, we don't emphasize big feeds. A big feed means work, and kitchen slavery is particularly onerous on Christmas Day, even when the slave is your wife.
   After all that shopping, gift wrapping, stamp licking, cookie making, decorating and double-checking to be sure that a card has been sent to the Greens at their new address, a wife shouldn't have to wrestle a turkey or mash potatoes. She shouldn't that is, unless so inclined. Some women think it their bounden duty to knock themselves out on special days. Those so inclined are beyond help.

CARROMS

CROKINOLE 

   YOU SHOULD allow time to play those new Christmas games with your child. We played a lot of crockinole and carroms on Christmas when I was a boy and my father enjoyed it all as much as we did.
   Such pastimes would be laughed out of the living room today, I suppose, as would primitive wind-up trains and automobiles. I spent considerable time last Christmas playing Monopoly with my son, however, and think crokinole would have been preferable. Crokinole doesn't demand much thought.
   Dad also read aloud from our new Christmas books. That sort of thing isn't done much now.

   BUT EXCEPT for the greater advance blare, Christmas hasn't changed fundamentally and won't. There's still the humble beauty of its divine origin, still the promise of peace on earth and universal goodwill.
   I think it should be kept simple and uncluttered, undefined by raucous celebration or frantic scurrying about. There should be time for meditation and appreciation of family. There should be some singing around the piano, some harking back to Christmases past.
   You can do all this only in one place--home. That's why I'm glad I'll be there.

Copyright 2016 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.

Why the Friendship Barriers?

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune

December 30, 1961

   I HAVE in mind a few dozen couples I wish my wife and I knew better. If, during the year ahead, we could get them on our social circuit we'd be well pleased. We're on jovial terms with folks we like very much, nearby residents and people we meet in church, at PTA meetings and parties.
   But the chance of enlarging the area of close friendship during the next 12 months isn't particularly bright. We'll doubtless remain in the same familiar groove and run with the same old crowd.

   WE'RE TOO busy and preoccupied to do otherwise. So is everybody else who's lived in one place long. It's convenient and enjoyable, a custom less taxing than extending invitations to persons who have never been inside the house. But time is more the villain than habit.
   To know the Whites better, you must invite them over to dinner or an evening of bridge and dessert. But if this cultivation of new friends isn't kept within bounds something has to give. There aren't enough evenings to go around, unless you jettison your old buddies.
   Social climbers, in their struggles to attain eminence, don't hesitate to do this. But they are a sparse breed, praise be, and confined almost entirely to ambitious young sprouts eager to know the right people and who haven't yet attained a true sense of values.

   STILL, though old friends are beyond price, it's nice to enlarge the scope--and too bad that the process is so time-consuming and shackled by form. Back in a far yesterday you could invite the Whites over on the spur of the minute for nothing more sophisticated than coffee and conversation. You could even pay them an unannounced call. You can't now. This informal technique can even estrange close companions.
   You invite the Whites over a couple of weeks in advance, being very specific about arrival time so they won't catch you vacuuming the carpet. You plan decor, food and diversion with all the care of a general mapping battle strategy.
   Since you can't do this often without killing yourself, you seldom do it at all. The result is that many potential friendships never flower and strangers have a tough time putting down roots. If they could drop in for cheese and crackers they'd have it made.

   IV'E DONE my share of yapping about church but am not blind to church benefits, one of which is sociability. Those who dismiss the church as "the poor man's country club," impress me only slightly.
   The criticism is partially true, if it qualifies as criticism, but just what's wrong with church being a social center? If that isn't one of its functions then I've missed the message. I've found many of my best friends in a "poor man's country club." So have thousands of others.

   THE ONLY contact my wife and I have with a lot of people we're fond of comes on Sunday in church. I have some misgivings about the destiny of my soul but none about such contacts.
   If "having folks in" had not become such a protocol-encrusted flap, a lot of people we'd like to have as close friends would become just that. If you're one of those we'd like to know better, if cheese and crackers aren't beneath you and you don't mind a place with a "lived in" look, drop around and give friendship a chance.


Copyright 2016 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.