One of my favorite Christmas songs is aptly called “The Christmas Song.” The piece, written by Robert Wells and Mel Torme, was first sung by Nat King Cole in the mid-1940s. You’ll recognize these very familiar words:
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yule-tide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos
All my life I felt warm inside picturing nuts roasting in the fireplace, snow outside on the ground and people clad in huge winter coats with fur around the top. Living in Southern California though, meant that none of these scenes were actually part of my existence. I couldn’t appreciate the difficulty of starting an open fire, how painful and dangerous frost can be on the nose and toes, or how the cold feels when one must wear an Eskimo coat. Now, Mel Torme, born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, had experience with all those things, but apparently didn’t protest to Robert Wells, a West Coast native, about the incongruity of the lyrics. After all they wrote the song during a Southern California heat wave in July of 1945, in an effort to “stay cool by thinking cool.”
Well, I’m learning about winter weather and……………this fall I learned about chestnut trees. In order to roast chestnuts on an open fire, one must pick them up off the ground. The wonderful tasting (I’ve been told) chestnut is encased by a spiky shell and I learned the hard way not to attempt to pick one up bare-handed. The nut is medium-sized, but the case makes them much larger and so only a few nuts can be picked up at one time. One afternoon I thought I could quickly clean up the chestnuts and then mow the lawn, but soon found out that the labor of removing the nuts would take all day (my back was not happy the next day).
For most of us, the anticipation of Christmas is like chestnuts roasting over an open fire with Jack Frost nipping at our noses. It takes thoughtful preparation – finding the perfect gift for the relative who turns up her nose at any gift given because of some perceived past hurt (prickly chestnuts). It takes us much longer than we think to prepare for the perfect holiday (picking up a few chestnuts at a time). And……….Jack Frost is always present, threatening to add a little pain to the celebration. This Christmas will be harder than most. Not only will we remember those who cannot be present at our table due to death, extenuating circumstances or choice but we will miss many more due to social distancing. It begs the question: what is Christmas really about?
Note to self: Prickly chestnuts and Jack Frost can’t take away Christmas. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. It’s believing that the world can be a better place if we put our trust in God. It’s seeing the beauty of chestnuts roasting over an open fire, rather than the pain of picking up prickly nuts and the fear of frostbite from the cold.