Amid the backdrop of the winter season, Christmas is a time of warmth and family, joy and celebration, and faith and tradition. As we gather with our families to celebrate the blessings of the year past, we bask in the company of those closest to us, sharing the merriment and traditions of the season as a most welcome interlude to our most busy lives.
The warmth of the glowing hearth echoes the warmth we feel in the embrace of family, brought together in the spirit of the season. In that inviting glow of our lighted trees, we take pleasure in the joy of the children opening presents and beaming with joy as the magic of the season brings together fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, aunts, uncles, and grandparents for that tenderest of family moments.
After the culmination of the hustle and bustle, the rushed trips through airports and across countless miles of highway, we finally reach that moment when all is good and right.
At year’s end, the blessings of this most special time remind us of the institutions and sacrifices which made the season possible. Inwardly, Christmas would not be Christmas without faith and family. Outwardly, our celebration in this, the land of the free, owes to the longstanding American prosperity which blesses us with the means to celebrate, secure in the liberty provided by those who fought and died, and serve to this day, upholding our freedom in the greatest traditions of our Armed Forces.
As we gather with our families, let us never forget those whose service to this nation kept them away from home as we gather under the umbrella of security and freedom their service provides.
As soft Christmas music plays gently in the background of a family gathering, let us pay special attention to those immortal words sung by Bing Crosby, in his famous Christmas tune, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
Though most know the song merely as a longing for home during the holidays, Crosby originally recorded the tune in 1943, honoring those Americans fighting and dying to rid Europe of the scourge of the Nazis, as their families celebrated back home, thousands of miles from the horrors of war.
Penned from the perspective of a soldier, Crosby sung, “I’ll be home for Christmas – If only in my dreams.”
As children dreamt of toys and Santa, who most surely would visit all good girls and boys, our servicemembers overseas dreamt of holidays back home, most unsure if they’d ever return to see their families at Christmas time. Yet, the American spirit remained strong among those who longed for trees and mistletoe to replace the bombs and bullets they’d come to know, for all those blessings they longed for back home were made very possible by the sacrifice of their absence.
This, the desire for a better, a more free and prosperous life has always been central to the American tradition of Christmas.
For those of us who celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus, we remember how an even greater sacrifice made possible that which doesn’t fill the windows of stores or gleam beneath the tree. For Christians, Christmas is a celebration of a most amazing miracle, one gift given so freely to us in the spirit of God’s infinite love, over 2000 years ago.
In keeping this tradition of faith, we celebrate the season in the company of family, giving gifts in an expression of our love for one another as we remember that gift given to us millennia ago.
These themes were echoed by President Ronald Reagan in his first Christmas address to the nation. Sitting in the Oval Office, Reagan reflected upon what Christmas meant to so many millions of Americans from sea to shining sea.
As we reflect upon what Christmas means to our families, let us remember what it meant to Ronald and Nancy, and how the leadership of our nation’s fortieth president brought the freedom, security, and prosperity to celebrate this tradition of faith and family, both to our fellow countrymen, as well as the worldwide community of all men and women yearning to celebrate in freedom.
Amid the backdrop of the Cold War, Reagan’s leadership shone as a beacon of light to all those enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, who, through the strength of leadership bolstering that basic human thirst for freedom, would one day be able to celebrate Christmas just as we do here at home.
From our families to yours, Merry Christmas from your friends at Bearing Drift.
Good evening.
At Christmas time, every home takes on a special beauty, a special warmth, and that’s certainly true of the White House, where so many famous Americans have spent their Christmases over the years. This fine old home, the people’s house, has seen so much, been so much a part of all our lives and history. It’s been humbling and inspiring for Nancy and me to be spending our first Christmas in this place.
We’ve lived here as your tenants for almost a year now, and what a year it’s been. As a people we’ve been through quite a lot—moments of joy, of tragedy, and of real achievement—moments that I believe have brought us all closer together. G. K. Chesterton once said that the world would never starve for wonders, but only for the want of wonder.
At this special time of year, we all renew our sense of wonder in recalling the story of the first Christmas in Bethlehem, nearly 2,000 year ago.
Some celebrate Christmas as the birthday of a great and good philosopher and teacher. Others of us believe in the divinity of the child born in Bethlehem, that he was and is the promised Prince of Peace. Yes, we’ve questioned why he who could perform miracles chose to come among us as a helpless babe, but maybe that was his first miracle, his first great lesson that we should learn to care for one another.
Tonight, in millions of American homes, the glow of the Christmas tree is a reflection of the love Jesus taught us. Like the shepherds and wise men of that first Christmas, we Americans have always tried to follow a higher light, a star, if you will. At lonely campfire vigils along the frontier, in the darkest days of the Great Depression, through war and peace, the twin beacons of faith and freedom have brightened the American sky. At times our footsteps may have faltered, but trusting in God’s help, we’ve never lost our way.
Just across the way from the White House stand the two great emblems of the holiday season: a Menorah, symbolizing the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, and the National Christmas Tree, a beautiful towering blue spruce from Pennsylvania. Like the National Christmas Tree, our country is a living, growing thing planted in rich American soil. Only our devoted care can bring it to full flower. So, let this holiday season be for us a time of rededication.
Christmas means so much because of one special child. But Christmas also reminds us that all children are special, that they are gifts from God, gifts beyond price that mean more than any presents money can buy. In their love and laughter, in our hopes for their future lies the true meaning of Christmas.
So, in a spirit of gratitude for what we’ve been able to achieve together over the past year and looking forward to all that we hope to achieve together in the years ahead, Nancy and I want to wish you all the best of holiday seasons. As Charles Dickens, whom I quoted a few moments ago, said so well in “A Christmas Carol,” “God bless us, every one.”
Good night.
