Article December 25, 2006 Issue

The real Christmas message

BY ALLISON PHINNEY

FOR SOME YEARS , just before Christmas holidays, I'd find myself working late at the office downtown. By the time I finally left, stores would be closing, crowds gone, and I'd emerge into a wide, bare urban plaza after dusk. Only a stray business executive or two, carrying home packages from some last-minute shopping, would be hurrying by in the cold.

Without people around, the standard decorations on lampposts and the lighted trees seemed less than cheery—bleak, even. And you couldn't help feeling there wasn't a lot in all those tall, grand buildings, now emptied, that could ultimately satisfy the spirit of their daily occupants. Busyness, fleeting prestige, a high income level, wouldn't do it. Walking along in the darkness, I felt keenly the need all of us have to look elsewhere for the heart and soul of our lives.

Today's array of holiday festivities offers a temporary sort of warm respite from bleakness. But, interestingly, it is the simple, original Christmas story that still holds the greatest practical promise for lifting the hearts of everyone.

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