That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!”)
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“Silent night, holy night. Silent night, nothing feels right.” ~Sufjan Stevens (“That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!”) “This is a happy Christmas, alright. A great Christmas. Next year, pray God, all of you will be singing this at your own fireplaces, around your own tree.” ~Bing Crosby (“Silent Night,” 1945) “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!” There is a recent Hallmark movie about the wonders of traveling by train on Christmas Day. It stars Dermot Mulroney as a novelist, Kimberly Williams-Paisley as a love-lost romantic, and Joan Cusack as a nostalgic railroad marshal. As someone who has traveled by train on December 25th, let me attest that there is enough ground between reality and the fiction portrayed in this movie that one would need a train to cross it. My experience came in 2002, the year after my parents moved from Dayton, Minnesota, to Hartfield, Wisconsin. Although it was exciting to consider myself a resident of a different state for the first time in my life, it seemed to me that we’d traded our family home for a slightly nicer house – one solidly in “Packer” territory, no less, which for a Vikings fan is a bit difficult to take. On top of this major change, I had also undergone the tragic collapse of my academic career, which happened for no reason other than that I didn’t really care one way or another if I passed my classes or even showed up for tests. So when it came time for me and my sisters to return “home” for the holidays, from Minnesota where we’d lived our whole lives, we somehow chose to travel by train. Although my two sisters and I each had reliable vehicles and proven driving records, we decided to take the Amtrak “Empire Builder” from Minneapolis to Milwaukee and back. I really have no idea why…There was some reasoning on my Dad’s side which ensured the price-to-value ratio, along with the train’s ability to pass through a snowstorm like a hot knife through butter; and there was also something on my side about the romanticism of riding on a passenger train for once in my life, along with my opportunity to catch up on some reading between semesters. Because, wow, I was so relieved to have a break!1 And in the process of this hollow to-and-fro, I had plenty of time to wonder what the point of it was—or anything for that matter. I realize this isn’t much of a story, but for me it isolates a very particular feeling. Recalling this moment is like casting a spell on myself, returning me to the bleak return-trip to Minnesota, which feels like an encounter with the polar opposite of Christmas. It is the sense of being alone, while also in a crowd; of having been back to my bedroom which wasn’t at home; of having a large block of free time, yet having nothing to do; and the presence of a strained and unhappy wait for something to change, while staring out at the constantly-updating panorama of a frozen Wisconsin countryside. If this is the opposite of the Christmas feeling, it goes along 1 The main objective of a college dropout is to delay the news about it for as long as possible. with the bleak and sparse song “That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!” by Sufjan Stevens. I think both this song and this essay aim to reveal the same thing, which is also closer to the true reason for the Christmas season: the virtue, feeling and expression of advent. Advent is a concept which doesn’t belong to religion, although it has strong associations to ritual and annual festivities. For an experience of advent, there needs to be a problem, an absence of a solution, and a transition where the solution arrives. Consider “the advent of television.” Yes, it almost sounds like an overstatement, and one could hardly call a lack of television to be a problem. But once the device made its way from living room to living room, it brought with it a sweeping and universal change to how each family interacted with the outside world. You can confirm this by asking someone who grew up in the 50s if they remember the exact day when their family got their first TV. Their answer will be surely be “Yes!” In the case of Bing Crosby and the spirit of the song “Silent Night” which I presented in the opening epigram for this essay, the advent he is hoping for is a world-wide peace. The element of arrival is a key to this experience, and it is the root of the word “advent.” The feeling or expectation of an imminent arrival is important because it leaves the transition between as a singular and ideal spot of time.2 Once a train arrives at the station, for example, the entire train journey will have so much in common within itself that each moment is in some way interchangeable with any other. What is lacking throughout, of course, is the presence of the destination. For this reason, advent keys in on some pure and simple moment of change (to step down from the passenger car, for instance), which in turn makes for a bigger difference between before and after. Sufjan Stevens is a current-day musician whose music can be found in the “indie rock” category, though certainly closer to the instrumental and mellow side of that genre.3 He is an artist who is more familiar with precise emotions than most people, I would say. In particular, his music is spiritual and inspired, and as a storyteller, he has an innate ability to connect personally with his audience. Although much of his music is avant-garde and challenging, he has several lucid and palatable albums, and I think four or five of his songs are genuinely sublime. It’s also important to know that many of Sufjan’s songs and lyrics are very personal and autobiographical. This is just who he is as a person and as an artist – those who have seen him perform live know he is more than happy to talk and talk and talk (then talk some more) about his songs and life experiences! To the point where you are certain you’re not the only one in the audience who wonders if it’s getting awkward. But amazingly, Sufjan never lets it be awkward, and you get a sense that he’s genuinely glad to have you in the audience. This demonstration of poise proves how nothing is both awkward and genuine. With all of this said, and for the sake of this essay, I want to assume my own interpretation for the song I will be discussing. Forgive the notion that this happened to the songwriter and assume along with me an outside perspective of the characters involved. Also: I want to ask you, reader, to listen to this song on your own a few times so it may withstand all of this attention. 2 To understand what I mean by this phrase, please read my essay “Stations of Desire” in this essay set. 3 Sufjan is pronounced “SOOF-yahn,” but if you said “SUFF-jan,” he probably wouldn’t mind. …So now that we’ve all heard “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!” and perhaps a few of his other songs, we are ready to proceed. But before I get into telling this story, I want to say a word or two about snow. Because as the Inuit famously have 100 different words for snow, anyone who has lived in the upper Midwest knows there actually are 100 different kinds of it. There’s wide-brimmed flakes that come down like flying saucers, and there’s little sleet pellets that roll under your feet when you step. There’s the fresh-blanket kind that begins to melt the moment it touches down on warm October grass, and there’s the caked-down freezer-burn kind that sulks in the ditch a day or a week into Spring. And in light of this, I want to describe two kinds of my own discovery: “December snow” and “January snow.” December snow is what we hope for when we think of a white Christmas. December snow is sledding and snow angels. December snow is a snow fort in a friend’s backyard on the first day of winter break. January snow, however, is the backdrop for the rest of winter which most adults refer to as “reality.” January snow is the oil-stained dreck on the side of the road when one’s car blew a tire from low air pressure on a -15 degree Thursday morning. January snow is too dry and grainy to make into a snowball, and it is sometimes hidden under a crust of month-old sunglaze, upon which one can take two or three steps before one’s foot goes plunging through the surface, pushing jean cuffs aside and scraping one’s bare ankle. January snow lies in a uniform patch across a 400-acre windblown cornfield, where white braids of ice crystals cross frozen stretches of highway like snakes from one side to the other. In “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!,” the character transitions from a world of December snow to a world of January snow. Sadly, this transition comes not through a lifetime of maturity and experience, but through a single disillusioning experience. At the beginning of the song, he – who is presumably a young boy around 12-years-old – is busy shoveling snow, sledding, and happily dreaming about what he will be getting for Christmas.