A Thought or Two About Dismantling Christmas

A repairman is coming at noon to fix the bay window. The first task of the morning was to take down the candy cane garland strung across the bay window. Then down came the little tree, the decorative tins, the Christmas cards, etc., etc. Now the window sits looking stark, naked, awful.

Ever read W.H. Auden's Christmas Oratorio? It's from his book of collected poems. I read it as an essay more than a poem...have I mentioned how much I love essays and essayists? Probably. I think it's why I am so attracted to the world of Blogdom.

Anyway, I've tried without success to find Christmas Oratorio already posted on the web so I could share it without worry of copyrights. Instead, I'll have to hope that you may be intrigued enough to visit your local library or, if you're really blessed, to have it as part of your own collection.

Christmas Oratorio

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes—
Some have gotten broken—and carrying them up
to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and
burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Leftovers to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week—
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such
a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted—quite unsuccessfully—
To love all our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and
failed.
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility—once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's
geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our
experience.
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had
forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have
seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time
of all.
For the innocent children who whispered excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents
to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensations but ignoring the cause,
We look around for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met
the Son,
We are tempted ever to pray to the Father;
"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all right, don't worry; probably
in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful that we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, The Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is in noon:
When the Spirit must practise his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, that, in spite of her
prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

~W.H. Auden