Our Sixth Christmas
T is a sobering thought that we have not yet been able to offer our readers Christmas greetings without reservations and some absurdity. This is our sixth Christmas number, and in every case we have had to talk about goodwill in a world of bad will; to discuss peace in an atmosphere of war; to hope that our readers will contrive to be happy though the earth is fuller of unhappiness than at any period of which we have knowledge. Nor can we use the conventional language of Christmas in this issue. We can, and do, hope that many will find it possible to lay aside care for a few hours, and even feel festive and gay; especially men and women who have been working to exhaustion point in the full and bitter knowledge that all their efforts have been destructive. If Christmas brings relief to them, either of body or of spirit, it will to that extent be happy. But to the great majority all over the world it can bring little this year but a nearer and surer hope. To the millions of our enemies it can bring no hope at all; and this is one of the days on which we should remember them in charity. If we can’t do more we can be sorry for them, and for all that lies ahead of them; but it would be hypocrisy to pretend that we are anywhere shedding tears for them. Christmas makes no such demands on us. It speaks to our goodwill if we have it. It is the enemy of meanness and of coldness. It encourages benevolence if we are capable of benevolence; asks for warmth and neighbourliness and the sharing of good things of all kinds. But it most of all invites us to lay down our burdens; to forgive; to forget; to cast away care. It -is "peace evithout conditions, magic without rules or a formula, but it rests with ourselves whether the magic works. We can’t make it work by doing something: we may by being something. But the sure way to end everything -to spoil our own day and that of everybody about us-is to be emotional cowards. If we will not trust our emotions, let goodwill well up and overflow, we do not deserve a happy Christmas and will assuredly not have one.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 287, 22 December 1944, Page 7
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395Our Sixth Christmas New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 287, 22 December 1944, Page 7
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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