I’m rewriting a post from last Christmas that I liked, in part because the ethics news is ticking me off, in part because I am once again having a non-Christmas because I miss my late wife Grace too much to celebrate anything, and in part because the song means a lot to me. I foolishly posted the first version of this last year on Christmas day, guaranteeing that few would read it. I’ll try a bit earlier this time.

I co-wrote two Christmas revues for my late, lamented (by me, anyway) professional theater company in Arlington, Virginia, The American Century Theater. The most popular of the two (though not my personal favorite) was called “If Only In My Dreams,” a title taken from the lyrics of another wistful Christmas song, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” by lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent. It was introduced by Bing Crosby in 1943—it’s amazing how many of our secular Christmas songs were first recorded by Bing. Well, maybe not so amazing: what was amazing was the range and warmth of his voice. 

“If Only In My Dreams” was constructed around the letters written by GIs overseas during World War II to their families or  girlfriends as Christmas loomed. They were published in an issue of American Heritage, a wonderful magazine now, sadly, in the company of Life, Look, and the Saturday Evening Post, gone and nearly forgotten. I alternated those letters with narration and the popular Christmas songs of the period. The brilliant Jacqueline Manger directed the show, which was being written as she rehearsed it. 

The most famous and important of these songs was, of course, “White Christmas.” Bing Crosby’s version is still the best selling single of all time, and deserves the title. When Irving Berlin handed the song over to the musician who transcribed his melodies (Irv could not read music and composed by ear, just like another brilliant and prolific tune-smith, Paul McCartney), he  famously announced that he had written, not just the best song he had ever created, but the best song that anyone had ever written. 

Crosby crooned the song in the 1942 film “Holiday Inn,” and it made him the face and voice of Christmas for the rest of his life. The song was the centerpiece of Bing’s 1947 “White Christmas” album of Christmas songs, the best-selling Christmas album of all time; and “White Christmas” was covered by every singer with a pulse (and still is).  The song inspired the film “White Christmas,”an annual staple of Ethics Alarms and the season; it also served as the climax of too many Crosby TV Christmas specials to count. The song probably (but you never know) ensures that Bing and Irving will be remembered long after “Going My Way,” the “Road” movies, “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” have been condemned to the cultural memory hole that awaits us all.

Yet it was not until Berlin’s daughter, writer Mary Ellen Bartlett, published her  a memoir of growing up as one of three girls whose father was the most acclaimed songwriter in the U.S.A., that the reason “White Christmas” feels so melancholy finally was revealed. She wrote,

“Though we were Jewish, Christmas for our family was a spectacular holiday, with decorations, presents, songs and celebrations. Yet there was a mystery, for every Christmas Eve my parents went somewhere without us…we never knew where, and they never would discuss it, brushing our questions aside and hinting that their errands had something to do with last minute preparations.

One day, when I was ten years old and  Christmas was approaching , my forbidden search for hidden presents uncovered an old newspaper clipping in my father’s desk. It puzzled me, because it announced that the infant son of Irving Berlin had died, and my sister and I never knew of any other siblings. I showed the clipping to our governess. She was reluctant, but I insisted, and she explained.

There had been a little boy, Irving Berlin Jr, who had been born two years after me.  He had trouble breathing, and after only three weeks, his heart had simply stopped. My parents were devastated, and couldn’t bring themselves to talk about the loss. “You must never mention this to them,” she said. Then I noticed the date on the clipping.

“Where do my parents go on Christmas Eve?” I asked. She looked at me, then revealed the secret that had been withheld from us, that our parents would never tell us themselves, hoping that Christmas would always symbolize joyful times for us, as it once had for them.

“They go to the cemetery, to be with your brother and lay flowers on his grave. He died on Christmas day.”

Ponder the lyrics of the song in that context. A “white Christmas” is a warm, nostalgic, merry Christmas. Berlin is telling us that he remembers when Christmas was like that for him, but knows it will never feel that was again. His lost little boy will never  listen for “sleighbells in the snow.” But he wishes for us that all of our days ahead will be merry and bright, and that all of our Christmases are “white.”

And I wish that for all of you. At this point, I really don’t know if I will ever enjoy another Christmas. Posting things like this is about the most pleasure I can get out of the season. Even “Jingle Bells” makes me sad, or “upsot.”

There is another “White Christmas” story to recall this season. In 2018, Nathaniel R. Lewis, 34, of East Vincent Township in Pennsylvania, lost his mind on Christmas night: he had separated from his wife just before the holidays, and was mad at the world.  He barricaded himself inside his home and fired shots at eleven police officers with his rifle during a ten hour standoff that began around 7:30 p.m. on Christmas and lasted until  the next morning.

A tragedy seemed inevitable.  Then Lewis shouted to the SWAT team’s negotiator that he would surrender, but only if the negotiator sang”White Christmas” for him. So the officer did his best. I imagine a rendition resembling Leslie Nielsen’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner” in “The Naked Gun.” But it worked! True to his word, Lewis  surrendered to police to face 11 charges of attempted homicide of a police officer.

It’s a magic song. It might even be the greatest song anyone had ever written, just as its creator said it was.

And I’m going to listen to it right now.