MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY NEW YEARS AND ALL HOLIDAYS! AND WEEKDAYS TOO!

victorshramko
Dec 26, 2025
4 min read

NLWM No 35 26/12/2025

Sometimes opposites are located close to each other. A famous French saying goes: 'Les contrastes se touchent' (touch of contrasts)! In the calendar at the turn of December and January, Sacrum et profanum meet every year. On Xmas and New Year.

When We Sing, We Don't Hate...

Merry Christmas wishes can be heard exchanged between different people in many countries and continents. Although they arose from sources of a specific sacrum, today they more and more sound like wishes: Joyful Holidays. I'd suppose every religious, sacred or philosophical, profane idea appeals to the meaning of good. (What people, not always good and wise enough, do with it - is totally another matter.)

This desire for longing and hope for goodness finds expression in many folk carols as well as literary and musical works. Some have become perennial hits. From C. Dickens' novel (and musical!) 'A Christmas Carol' up to the historical song 'White Christmas' (I don't mention 'Jingle Bells', because some people, maybe, are a bit tired of this sweet melody played day and night at every supermarket.)

Make Music, Not War

'When the song first became popular, I attributed it to the War and the fact that Christmas means peace.' You see, a war song doesn't have to be about wars. This is really a PEACE SONG' - wrote the song's composer in Los Angeles Examiner. A journalist from Chicago Times added: When we sing that we don't hate anybody. And there are things we love that we're going to have sometime if the breaks are not too bad against us. Way down under the latest hit of his, Irving Berlin catches us where WE LOVE PEACE.'

Irving Berlin composed the song White Christmas in 1942, at a time when the slaughter of WWII was already raging in full swing. This song from the Hollywood film Holiday Inn won immediately not only an Oscar Award, but more – millions of hearts. Not only those who fought but also those who did not know if they would see them again. They all dreamed of a quiet, family-friendly White Christmas.

It's a Long Way to Go...

Life itself is a journey. So we are all wanderers. Especially in the United States. Irving was born on May 11, 1888, in an unknown location. In 1893, his parents with their eight children came to New York from Byelorussia.

It's a long way from a poor little boy on the street to the pedestal of a monument. You have to go fast, persistently and – have luck. When his father died, the boy, just turned 13, took to the street in various odd jobs, working as a busker singing for pennies. After, he worked as a singing waiter in a Chinatown Cafe.

From the beginning, music was his life path. In 1907 he published his first song (Marie from Sunny Italy). And after only four years, in 1911, he wrote his first international hit: Alexander's Ragtime Band.

A Lost Child Became National Hero

His life, which lasted over 100 years, was filled with music until the end. Over 1,000 songs he wrote at home, on Broadway, and in Hollywood. He wrote seventeen complete scores for Broadway and revues, contributed material to six more. Several scores for Hollywood. The enormous success of White Christmas inspired both a movie and a musical. He was also a successful organizer: co-founder of the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) and builder of his own theatre, The Music Box.

His love and generosity to his country are legendary. He established The God Bless America Fund, which receives all income from his countless patriotic songs and distributes it to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

The composer's centennial in 1988 was celebrated worldwide. In New York, an all-stars tribute at Carnegie Hall benefitted the Hall and ASCAP. Special Emmy Award, and featuring such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, Natalie Cole, or Willie Nelson.

Berlin, a widower of 35 years to one wife and a father of three daughters, died at the age of 101, on September 22, 1989, in his sleep in his townhouse in NYC. Jerome Kern epitomized that 'Irving Berlin has no place in American music –

He Is American Music!'

His White Christmas lives on. And REMINDS US: NOT TO FORGET. About those who are fighting or waiting and – dreaming. About WHITE CHRISTMAS.

So – WE WISH YOU MERRY CHRISTMAS, JOYEUX NOËL, FELIZ NAVIDAD, BUON NATALE, AEEYAD SA'EEDA & HAPPY HOLIDAYS to – ALL!!!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

Just like ones I used to know

Where the tree tops gliste

And children listen

To hear sleight bells in the snow...

May your days be merry and bright

And may all your Christmases be white!

Jingle Bells, jingle bells...?

OK! All the way, all the way...