Christmas Comes But Once a Year
It was mid December and the night before Murdock was due back at the V.A. hospital. He was spending the night at Hannibal's apartment and the two men had made themselves comfortable in front of the TV for an all night Christmas movie marathon on one of the cable channels. All movies that they'd seen before, but they never seemed to get old, and that was no easy feat, on the schedule that night were three different versions of 'A Christmas Carol', two from the 1930s and one from the 1950s, followed by 'Holiday Affair' and 'It Happened on Second Avenue'.
"It's a nice change of pace from all those 'It's A Wonderful Life' marathons anyway," Hannibal told the captain, "I saw it once a long time ago and once was enough for me. I like James Stewart, I like Capra, and they made wonderful films together, but that one, once was enough. Tell you the truth, I still don't get what the big deal was about with it."
Murdock just continued to stare at the screen with a big grin on his face like he was in a trance. After a little while his expression changed and he said to the Colonel, "They used to be so simple, didn't they, Colonel?"
"What did?" Hannibal asked as he took out a new cigar and got ready to light it.
"Christmas movies," Murdock said as he watched the screen, "Full of heart and sentiment, not like today, is it?"
"I suppose not," Hannibal replied.
"Just like," the captain added, "Christmas in itself used to be so simple compared to now, didn't it?"
"I suppose so," Hannibal said, "I remember we actually used to take a break from holidays between Thanksgiving and Christmas, today they don't seem to believe in breathing space."
"Back then commercialism was in its infancy, not like now when it's a full scale invasion," Murdock said, "Used to be you only got stuff for your closest loved ones and everybody else understood, now you're expected to buy expensive things that nobody cares about for every single person you merely know, or just for the sake of giving something you're expected to give something so tacky you wouldn't send it to your worst enemy as an ironic way to say 'I like you, have a nice time'."
"Like those rubber bouncing brick fruitcakes to the mailman," Hannibal agreed, then thought of something, "Which reminds me, I need to get a package sent out for Decker."
"Christmas just isn't like it used to be, is it?" Murdock asked, "Used to be you get a bunch of people together, a little music, a few decorations, a little food, and that was enough. Didn't used to matter if nobody had much of anything, get everybody together and it was enough. Now everything's so complicated, exact, scheduled, detailed, every minute planned out, what happened?"
"The spirit's still there," Hannibal told him, "It's just gotten buried under everything else."
Murdock was quiet for a minute as he watched the movie, then he said to the Colonel, "Maybe then it's time somebody dug it up again."
Hannibal nodded in like but didn't say anything, instead he returned his attention to the black and white movie playing on the TV. These were the movies he grew up on and they did make the season a little more festive than they otherwise already were.
"I remember at Christmas Eve," Murdock said a while later, not really talking to Hannibal, just talking, "Our nearest neighbors would come over, everybody bring something for pot luck, sit around, eat, visit, they made us kids put on little shows for the grownups, dress us up like shepherds, the 3 wise men, everything, sing songs, do funny dances, they all thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen…course Grandpa's rum punch probably helped them reach that conclusion." He closed his eyes and tipped his head back and recalled, "Good punch. Oranges, limes, lemons, cranberries, all frozen for the punch. Rum punch, rum balls, rum cake, fruitcake with brandy, eggnog, funny, people sure don't mind giving kids alcohol at Christmastime, it's in all the goodies…well almost, Granny never put any in the cookies…oh, I remember one year, she tried making plum pudding, you know there ain't any plums in it? Kind of like a fruitcake, but worse. Fruitcake made from bread pudding, lot of bread in it…then you put holly on top, pour brandy on it, set the pudding on fire, and it doesn't burn the holly…" he turned to Hannibal and asked, "They make asbestos out of holly?"
Hannibal just shrugged. "How was it?"
"Awful," Murdock shook his head, "Like I said, worse than fruitcakes, 'singing in the copper', be lucky if the pudding doesn't eat the copper."
Hannibal sat back in his chair and laughed.
"Course as I recall, nobody really liked the fruitcake either, they just ate it because there was brandy in it," Murdock said, "Least I think that's why."
Hannibal remained reserved. His father always said his mother couldn't cook worth a darn, but he still ate it every night. She made a fruitcake that he remembered actually liking, he couldn't think why that was, but he could recall stuffing himself sick on it two years in a row.
"Always had lot of fun, nobody had much money and none of us got many presents, but we had everybody's company and that was enough, together we had the time of our lives and that was always the most important thing at Christmas. If you had family you spent it with them, if you didn't have family you got together with your friends, even if you did have family you could still be with friends. And then think today how many people don't have anyone to spend it with. Backwards, it's all backwards now. Nobody should ever have to spend Christmas Eve alone."
Hannibal too could remember Christmas Eves as a kid, they were quieter than Murdock's, least of all if Murdock was actually being honest with him. That was usually anybody's guess. But the fact remained, there were no neighbors, no other kids, no party, just he and his mother and father, sitting around the living room looking at each other. They'd have a small tree, decorate it best they could, which always looked good to him. The turkey would be in the oven for the big meal the next day, Christmas Eve dinner was usually light; both, his mother had told him, to appreciate the poor at Christmas and what they have to endure with no big feast with which to take advantage of as they did, and, so he wouldn't already be halfway stuffed when he decided to gorge himself on the jar of hard Christmas candies they set on the table for him. Oh but he spent the night ogling his presents, his hands just itching to start ripping into some paper and find out what toys he'd gotten.
Later on in the night, his parents worked together in concocting some kind of Christmas punch, two parts champagne and one part soda pop as best as he could recall, he never knew for sure. It had a lot of bite to it whatever it was. Then usually, they'd either sit around listening to his father retell the story of 'A Trap for Santa Claus', an old D.W. Griffith film he'd seen many years before Hannibal was even born, and before his parents had even married, even before they'd met, or, in the later years, they'd turn on the radio and listen to a Christmas Eve broadcast of A Christmas Carol, and in the years later than that they'd listen to the Christmas programs of Gracie Allen and George Burns, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, all the greats. It was a quiet celebration but a happy time, and he always knew first thing in the morning he'd be ripping into those packages, finding out once and for all what it was he got; whereas he spent the whole night before just looking at them and trying to figure it out, the suspense was great, but it wouldn't last for long and he always knew it.
The movie marathon finally ended around 3 o' clock in the morning, Hannibal turned the TV off and the two men went to bed. The next day Murdock went back to the V.A. as usual, and it was everybody to themselves again. The day was slow and uneventful. Hannibal went to bed that night alone, tired, desperately trying to sleep, but his mind wouldn't let him. The little voices inside of his head were racing around at warp speed, saying things that part of them made sense, part of them didn't, part of them were things other people had already said and some of them were his own thoughts. But among them all were things that Murdock had said to him the night before when he was at the apartment. They seemed to repeat themselves, and in the midst there were also thrown quotes that he had long since heard on screen, and read in print, many times over the years at Christmastime courtesy of Charles Dickens.
"They used to be so simple, didn't they, Colonel?"
"Full of heart and sentiment, not like today, is it?"
"Christmas in itself used to be so simple compared to now."
"Used to be you get a bunch of people together, a little music, a few decorations, a little food, and that was enough. Didn't used to matter if nobody had much of anything, get everybody together and it was enough."
The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much.
"Always had lot of fun, nobody had much money and none of us got many presents, but we had everybody's company and that was enough, together we had the time of our lives and that was always the most important thing at Christmas. If you had family you spent it with them, if you didn't have family you got together with your friends, even if you did have family you could still be with friends. And then think today how many people don't have anyone to spend it with. Backwards, it's all backwards now."
"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."
""Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" "It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"
"Nobody should ever have to spend Christmas Eve alone."
In an instant, all fatigue had escaped the Colonel. His eyes opened wide, and he shot up in his bed, and said to himself as an idea suddenly hit upon him, "He's absolutely right!"
Reaching for the phone by his bed, Hannibal dialed Murdock's room number at the V.A. It took a couple times for the captain to answer, and when he did, it was with a tremendous yawn, followed by a groggy, "Ocean bottom, Davy Jones speaking."
"Reflex, this is Hammer," Hannibal said, feeling chock full of energy now, "I have a brilliant idea."