In the spirit of the holidays, one of our clients has offered an Insight we thought our readers might enjoy…

…thanks Allen.

A BETTER YEAR PERHAPS

By Allen Bundy

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Government Bailouts, CEO Bonuses: frankly, I am tired of all the fearful news about the economy. I'm tired of being talked to death by respectable university professors who forever argue the meaning of this or that detail.

Thankfully, I've been hearing and reading more positive discussions of the recession from a large number of experts who think that we may have reached a turning point. The recent news, for example, that the job market has improved seems to be a good sign.

Please understand, I recognize that some people have had terrible misfortune as a result of the Wall Street debacle and the housing market collapse. People's homes and jobs have been lost. Others have suffered terribly. Lives have been unalterably changed.

There is no question the past few years have been difficult, but people have a way of dealing with pain: forgetting and storytelling.

When I think of my own family, I realize how the Great Depression lost its terror the farther away we got from it. Born in 1942, I was the product of a family who recalled it only too well, but over the years I saw it change shape as stories were told and lessons were learned. Maybe something like that is going on today.

I recall the family stories of past Christmases during the Great Depression. You know, of course, that the retelling means that each time a new detail was embroidered to make the story better.

My family was a little different. They didn't take themselves particularly seriously and they faced Holidays in the same way. Still they recognized the importance of celebration, of music, of song, food, drink, and of paying homage to the rites of the special day.

As the story was told, it was Christmas, 1935, and there wasn't a lot to celebrate. My family wasn't poor, but they also didn't have a lot of money. Someone realized that given what they had, this particular Christmas would be a sad sack of a holiday. Great aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, and various others in the cast of characters began designing a Christmas that might have a more meaningful value.

As for the tree, my grandfather, a carpenter who had discovered that work was plentiful at Burbank movie studios, one of the few businesses that was actually making some money, found a practically dead tree trunk, and then picked up various boughs lying about. A few carefully drilled holes in the trunk, accurate placement of white lumber glue, and he had a decent tree.

When it came to gifts, the family combined Christmas dinner with gift giving for everyone. Most had gardens and, remember, Southern California was well-populated with fruit trees.

Someone splurged for meat; others collected carrots, onions, potatoes, turnips, celery, garlic, and purchased some noodles. From the trees came walnuts, apples, lemons, oranges (saved by smudging – remember smudging?), and some pomegranates for color.

Before cooking the soup they rescued the oddest shaped fruits and vegetables and saved them to wrap in newspaper, tissue paper, and even some wrapping paper carefully saved from years before; when recycling wasn't considered to be a political statement, but rather expected behavior. Then they were placed under the tree.

There were no lights for the tree and candles were out of the question, so someone decided to rethink the idea of the tree altogether. After all why did it need lights and who was benefiting excepting GE? So on went the tinsel, and lampshades were tilted to highlight the tree.

Gifts were opened and each person told a story based on the odd shape of their gift. The gnarled carrot became an old man who stole hot apple pies, for example, or an orange became a baseball that turned colors when Lou Gehrig put the wood to it.

We were a family who celebrated on Christmas Eve, and the opening of presents and the well-oiled stories that accompanied them took us far into the night. And then the music. Singing, tambourines, a piano, guitar, a mandolin, and my father, who could barely carry a tune, playing his idea of a mouth harp.

Neighbors were closer then, and it wasn't long until the family was joined by others. By the end of the evening, it was time to thin the soup for another helping.

My Christmas hope for 2009 is that we are beginning to climb out of our most recent economic unpleasantness. The farther we get away from it, the less pain we will suffer, and the more stories we will have to pass on for our children to tell, in spite of all the difficulties.

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