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Home My WebLink AboutZurich Citizens News, 1971-12-16, Page 4THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1971 fDlIV TheChristmas Lights Are Shining ZURICH CITIZENS NEWS All over Canada, the Christmas lights are shining. Blue, green, gold and red, they sparkle, their radiance displacing shadows here, highlighting them there, both! within doors and without. Nothing could be a more significant symbol of this season, nor, after the shock and fear of our unhappy fall, more welcome. How we need light! - Christmas, of course, can be mere escape - for some even an orgy - but for the thoughtful this returning cel- ebration of the Birth helps to restore our sanity and our humanity. Machines may be everywhere, but Christmas reminds us that it is man who makes and operates them. Laws may rule us, or try to, but it is men who make the laws. Every new thrust forward, every dream that lifts us even briefly from our sorry ruts, begins in some human heart. Here lie buried the seeds of our hope and our despair. For a few precious weeks, thank God, hope is once more ascendant. We dare believe that better and more significant tomorrows may even now be lying in the cradles of Canadian homes, as once they lay, for all men, in a Bethlehem manger. The Two Christmases Decrying the commercialism of Christmas has be- come a popular conversational sport. The door is hardly shut on Thanksgiving before the big stores start ushering in Christmas. The decorations go up, sale fever sets in and the rush and the panic begin to build. Take away the Santa Claus parade, the rivalry to have the best display of outdoor lights, the biggest turkey, the most lavish presents and what is there left of Christmas anymore? Those Three Wise Men certainly didn't know what they started that night so long ago! They brought their most treasured possessions, gold, oils and spices, commodities of great importance in the trading econ- omy of the day. They gave their best as an act of worship. Whatever happened to that idea? Or to the Christ's mass of early centuries? Or the celebrations surrounding the Bishop of Asia Minor, Saint Nicholas, patron of sailors? Imported to the North American continent by the Dutch, the venerable ecclesiastic be - carne Santa Claus and his day was marked as a child- ren's holiday. The changing times have brought us a long way from those celebrations and trom the unsophisticated family fun which marked the yule season of 50 years ago when there were skating parties, taffy pulls, carolli ng and parlour games. Sometimes it seems as though Christmas has degenerated into a grab and grasp season of over- spending, overeating and credit buying, an excess of tasteless, frenetic ugliness. But sometimes the decrying of commercialism is just a cop-out from the whole Christmas scene by those too uncaring or insensitive to explore and re- discover Christmas as the happy, sharing experience it was meant to be. Christmas in the NOW? Different for sure, but is that all bad? It's up to us which of the two Christmases we celebrate, ZURICH Citizens NEWS PRINTED BY SOUTH HURON PUBLISHERS LIMITED, ZURICH HERB TURKHEIM, Publisher Second Class Mail Registration Number 1385s«��0.t . °11' Member: Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association Ontario Weekly Newspapers Association Subscription Rates: $4.00 per year in advance in Canada; $5.00 in United States and Foreigm; single copies 10 cents WHOEVER HEARD OF BUBBLE PIPES Never fails. llad barely written a column extolling the grand, mild weather we'd beet having, when the wind came out of the north with a bone in his teeth, and the snow flew, and the car and I both started coughing. And almost before I'd begun rueing the writing of such a jinx column, my wife yelped something like, "Holy Old Whackers! It's almost Christ- mas." And sure enough, it almost is. Christmas, when we were al: . young, was something. There was looking forward to school holidays, associated with sleighs and toboggans and skating and coming in soaking wet, rosy as a cherub, hungry as a hyena. There was the anticipation of decorating, hanging stock- ings, rustling paper, and a vast, magnificent turkey din- ner, a once -a -year treat. Christmas shopping was no problem. Nobody had any money. Of course, the agon- izing decisions were there, even then. For adults: should it be something practical - a new sweater or long under- wear; or should it be some- thing magic and enchanting - a game or a book? No question of both. For kids, with maybe 85 hard-earned pennies to spend, there was no problem. A bubble -pipe for your brother (100 and supply his own soap): a colouring book for your sister (150 and find her own crayons; a beautiful cup and saucer for your mother at 35¢ and a purple and yellow tie for your clad, at 25¢. If the family were bigger, you cut your cloth, And you did all your shop- ping on the day before Christ- mas. There was never a frantic thought that the stores might be sold out of bubble -pipes or long underwear. Then there was the symbolic significance, though we didn't even know the meaning of either word then. There was the church concert, usually held in the Sunday School hall. There were games and carols GODERICH 118 St. David St, 524-8787 and choirs. There were the telegrams from Santa Claus, read aloud periodically, and with mounting excitement, to say that he was getting closer and closer, from the North Pole, though Dander had come up lame. Then the entry of himself, the wild clamour, and the dispensing of those string bags with candy and an apple in each. And the Christmas pageant in the church, the nativity scene, invariably broken up by a tiny angel piping, "Hi Mommy. Lool<a me. I'm a angel, " while Morn blushed deeply between embarrass- ment and pride. I still look forward to Christ- mas, but there's a difference. It's about the difference with which a prisoner would look forward to (a) getting out of jail, or (b) going to the elect- ric chair. Nowadays we anticipate Christmas, all right. But what we look forward to is a hectic, expensive scramble, with precious little of the mystery and delight remaining. The Christmas turkey is now just a dirty great bird that has to be stuffed and then stuffed into us, and then cleared up after. A turkey today is not a gruesome, fascinating thing hanging head down in the woodshed, by its claw-like feet. It's just something you buy and stick in the freezer, PAGE 4 anytime during the year, in case you have unexpected weekend guests. Shopping has changed im- measurably. The panic button is pushed about the end of October and we are warned, shouted at, and scorned by the various media until we have a tremendous guilt feel- ing if we're not Christmas shopping by mid-November. The agonizing decisions are still there, but most people have some money now, which quadruples the decisions. Every year, at our house, we firmly decide, about Decemb- er 1st, that there will be no gifts or cards this year. And every year, at the last minute, we plunge into an orgy of both and wind up Christmas Day feeling that we) were right in the first place. Every year, the big problem is What to Buy Grandad, It's not that he is The Man Who Has Everything. The trouble is that he's The Man Who Doesn't Need Anything. He doesn't smoke or drink. Isis slippers are good as new. And he has at least six shirts in his bottom drawer, not even un- wrapped, bought on previous desperate birthdays and Christ- mases. The symbolic significance is still there, of course. And the Christmas concerts and pageant But what's a bag of candy to a kid today? He probably col- lected eight times that amount on Hallowe'en, and also has an allowance, so that he can buy his own, not that cheap stuff in the Christmas bag. And the pageants, more's the pity, tend to become second cousins to lashings of liquor, phoney TV Christmas programs, and sheer greed: "I wanna snow -mobile!:' Business and Professional Directory OPTOMETRISTS J. E. Longstaff OPTOMETRIST SEAFORTH MEDICAL CENTRE 527-1240 Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat- urday a.m., Thursday evening CLINTON OFFICE 10 Issac Street 482-7010 Monday and Wednesday Call either office for appointment. Norman Martin OPTOMETRIST Office Hours: 9-12 A,M. — 1:30-6 P.M. CLOSED ALL DAY SATURDAY' Phone 235.2433 Exeter Robert F. Westlake Insurance "Specialhdrg In General Insurance" Phone 236-4391 — Zurlah Guaranteed Trust Certificates 1 year 5µ% 2 year 62% 3 year 74% 4 year 72% 5 year 72 J. W. HABERER ZURICH PHONE 24346 AUCTIONEERS PERCY WRIGHT LICENSED AUCTIONEER Kippen, Ont. Auction Sale Service that is most efficient and courteous. CALL THE WRIGHT AUCTIONEER Telephone Hensall (519)262-5515 FUNERAL DIRECTORS WESTLAKE Funeral Home AMBULANCE and PORTABLE OXYGEN SERVICE DIAL 236-4364 — ZURICH ACCOUNTANTS Roy N. Bentley PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT GODERICH P.O. Box 478 Dial 524-9521 INSURANCE For Safety • • • EVERY FARMER NEEDS Liability Insurance For Information About Alf Insurance — Call BERT KLOPP DIAL 236-4988 -- ZURICH Representing CO-OPERATORS INSURANCE ASSOCIATION