Oddly enough, I was in the Christmas pageant once. I was Abraham, speaking to ≥my people≤ I got to ham it up Old Testament style, thunder my words about a coming savior and then mercifully retreat into the shadows. The choir sang, the organ bellowed, and we stared at the tiny baby in the middle, under the Christmas tree and among the sheep. We left with Handel ringing in our ears and good feeling in our hearts. Nantucket at its best.

We werenπt always this way. Christmas is one of the most recent and most American of holidays. No one celebrated the birth of Christ until almost 400 years after his death. Instead, all of those Romans partied for Saturn at the Winter Solstice, then they partied for the kids (Juvenalia) and for Mithra, the infant God. Then, through the middle ages, it kept that childish, destructive bent like a Halloween in December. In Shakespeareπs England, it was a time of madness when servants got to be the master and Misrule was King. The Puritans, under Cromwell, banned the holiday. From 1659 to 1681, it was banned in Boston and you could get a 5 shilling fine for showing the spirit of the season.

1659 also brought Thomas Macy, his wife Sarah, and their five kids to Madaket. As the first white people to winter over, they stayed alive, prayed, and tried to convert the natives. Nat Philbricπs best guess is that they lived in a dug-out, or a hole in the ground. For them, December 25 passes much like many of the other days: cold, wet, hungry, and bored.

In ≥Moby Dick,≤ The Pequod leaves Nantucket on Christmas day. Peleg and Bildad tell the crew to watch their prayers and mind that the cheese doesnπt spoil, then slip back to port while the ship goes around Great Point. No stockings and no presents for Queequeg.

It took Washington Irving and Charles Dickens to kick Christmas into its current mode of gift giving, trees and generosity. The Victorians bought into it whole hog and here we are. We took some ideas from one culture (Trees), some from another (cards), and made it a shopping goal and an excuse to give CEOπs more money. Somewhere along the way, it all got overwhelming. Itπs hard to read about a woman getting trampled at Wal-Mart by a crowd of bargain hunting DVD buyers and not feel that Christmas is out of whack.

Charlie Brown and his sad little Christmas speak to my heart these days. Nothing fits for Charlie Brown. He doesnπt get the spirit and, when he gets involved, he gets laughed at. Even his dog is more popular. Charlie Brown and I could move back in with Oliver Cromwell and banish the whole thing altogether.

However, the Puritans had it wrong. As did the Pope Julius I. Christmas is the pageant of food, children and infants. Its pagan roots are its strongest ones.

Last year, Rourke figured out that Christmas meant presents. He came downstairs at six in the morning and stopped at a tent shaped like a race car. For the next fifteen minutes, it was his favorite thing ever. Then, we got to show him more presents and it just got better. After an hour of vigorous playing, he curled up under the racing car tent and watched it all.

I hope somewhere, deep down in the part of his mind that remembers without words, he keeps that memory wrapped tight. Last yearπs Christmas should be the template for all of the ones that follow. If his little brain went into ≥record≤ mode while he is lying under that tent, he will have a great treasure later on in his days.

I have my own Christmas picture, both in my head and on my desk. My parents sit on a sofa, with my grandparents while my brother, sister and I play with a large, plastic penguin on the living room floor. We were trying to feed it some crackers. The children are intent and serious, the adults are in hysterics.

Since that Christmas, time has passed. My grandparents and mother have died. My father is much older and much less sure of his world. I will not see my sister, nor very much of my brother at Christmas. It is a hard day for loss. All of those who went before huddle around the tree like ghosts.

Like Rourke, it is probably best to sit for a second and just accept the moment that is Christmas morning. In ≥Our Town≤ Emilyπs ghost goes back to see her ninth birthday and is disappointed. Neither she nor her mother appreciated what they had when they had it. More likely than not, Thomas Macy did not sit inside the mud cave and appreciate the moment when his wife and all of his children were alive and together. I hope he did.

So this year, I am going to banish everything else, from the YACK list and the GHYC to threat level orange and Saddam Hussein. I want to sit on the sofa and watch the boys go from package to package and eat some coffee cake and drink some orange juice and find a way to move into that little room of Christmas morning. And stay there.

P.S. (More incoherent than usual)