"Christmas at Disneyland" by Rev. Thomas Schade

[Memos from Rev. Barbara Merritt and Rev. Tom Schade]

M I N I S T E R ‘ S   M E M O
“Christmas at Disneyland”

On Christmas morning, while most Christmas celebrants were gathered around a
tree and exchanging presents, my immediate family flew to Los Angeles. By
early afternoon, we were at the Magic Kingdom, ready to spend Christmas Day
at Disneyland. Instead of “decking the halls with boughs of holly,” we were
slathering on the sunscreen, and adjusting our sunglasses, and ready to
stand in line.

Surprisingly, Disneyland is an ideal place to spend quality time with your
family. If you feel that you don’t spend enough time together, and have too
few opportunities for extended conversations with your loved ones, go to
Disneyland, or Disneyworld. You will have plenty of time to talk together as
a family while you stand in line. The great genius of Disney is that they
can make standing in line a pleasurable experience. The Soviet Union would
have lasted much longer if they had taken a lesson from Disney about lines.

Standing in line together as a family, is not like a holiday at home. At
home, half the family is diverted by watching football on television; the
other half contends with meal preparation and kitchen duty. At Disneyland, a
family stands in line together, gathered into a small space, no more than 2
or 3 feet from each other, with nothing to do but talk to each other.
Relationships, jobs, careers, living situations, “the hopes and fears of all
the years” can be picked over at a leisurely pace, while you slowly shuffle
your way toward the attraction you are waiting for.

And at the end of the line, as a reward for all your family togetherness,
bright fresh young people load you into either a phony boat, or a fake car,
or a pseudo space ship, or an ersatz train, or the simulacrum of a toboggan,
check your seat belt and send you off on a brief adventure. Bouncing around
in a big circle while department store manikins boom unintelligible
catchphrases from movies at you wakes you up and makes you feel alive. Then
its time for a snack before you pick another line to wait in. Once in a
while, a parade goes by and the Christmas music never ends.

At the end of the day, the lights come on and as darkness finally falls,
there is a firework display. Fireworks on Christmas! What a wonderful idea!
They are completely different than fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Independence Day fireworks are choreographed to patriotic music, and recall
battles and explosions and the “rockets red glare”. Christmas fireworks are
set to Christmas carols and are graceful. They are Christmas lights and
Christmas candles come to life and they shimmer and twinkle.

The fireworks crowd, and it was large, had all gathered in a vast public
square, and as the last lights faded from the dark sky, it started to snow.
Yes, it started to snow. A perfect snow flurry, a snow shower of big perfect
fluffy flakes of snow. It was a beautiful snowfall, the kind of snowfall
that we should have as the Christmas eve service ends, or the kind of snow
shower that should happen when you cut your own Christmas tree. A
picture-perfect snow fall. The little kids, many of them who rarely see
snow, are shrieking with delight and clambering up on their Dads’ shoulders.
They throw wide their arms and turn their faces to the dark and empty sky,
and let those big fluffy flakes drift down onto their outstretched tongues.
The snowflakes land on their “nose and eyelashes” and I could see the
perfect six-shaded shape of each flake as it fell on my dark blue spring
jacket. They were wet and cold and melted and gone.

At the very most perfect moment, it snowed in Southern California, on
Christmas day, exactly on the spot our little family of New Englanders had
gathered. It was perfect. It snowed on Christmas Day at Disneyland, just as
it had every night for the entire month of December at Disneyland, right on
schedule, right as planned, right as rehearsed.

I have no idea how they did it. I’m just glad they did.

                                          Tom



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