If you are like the rest of us, your phone and your TV are filled with ads suggesting you purchase this gadget, gizmo, or whatever.

In the words of Tom Lehrer: “Angels we have heard on high, tell us to go out and buy.” It is the Christmas season, and, once again, we are bombarded with ads suggesting that if you don’t use your credit card or dig into the family mattress for the hidden cash, you are a grinch-like, hateful, un-American wretch.

But, and you knew there was going to be a “but,” is that how we ought to celebrate this season of all seasons?

Once upon a time, if you believe in the passages in the Good Book, a couple of thousand years ago, some Roman big shot decided to count his subjects. He held a census ordering citizens to travel to their hometown to be counted. Among this group was a young Palestinian couple who were expecting their first child. You know the rest. They stopped for the night, but there was no room at the inn. But the guy at the front desk allowed them to spend the night in the stable out back, permitting, allowing, no less, them to nestle in the straw among the livestock and whatever else lived there. And it was the time for the young woman to deliver, and she brought forth a son, wrapped him in whatever clothing she had nearby, and laid him in a manger. Soon, the neighbors came over to celebrate the event. You know the rest of the story.

Last March, in the middle of a dark, chilly night, as I lay in a hospital bed bemoaning my situation and down in the dumps with depression, I heard the first few bars of a tune broadcast in the ward sound system. It was a lullaby. You all know it, a little tune written by Johannes Brahms in 1897. An hour or so later, I heard the same melody again and asked a nurse about it. She smiled and said the hospital played a few bars of the Brahms Lullaby each time a baby was born.

Suddenly, my depression disappeared. A warm feeling settled in my heart, and I smiled.

Somewhere in that hospital, a woman had just wiped the sweat from her brow and smiled sweetly, proud that she had brought a new life into the world. Not far from her, a new father smiled, too. I’ll bet he started to think about how their life had changed in that moment. Soon, the infernal internet buzzed the couple’s smartphones into life, alerting new grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles and aunts, cousins and neighbors and co-workers of the great event. Huzzah, big news, a new life had arrived.

Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, that new life was passed into the warm arms of caring doctors and nurses who joined the smiling celebration as they performed the ancient rituals, wrapping the tiny newcomer in soft, warm blankets and nestling him/her into a warm bassinet. It was a time of quiet celebration for all, especially for the woman. She not only brought life into the world, but also survived the most dangerous medical time of her young life.

I am sure those new mothers recovering in the Lewiston hospital shared the same feeling of accomplishment and joy that thousands of years ago, the young Palestinian woman felt when she lay back in the straw of a chilly stable and smiled at a newborn son, wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. Although they lived thousands of years apart, they shared a few precious moments of rest before their relatives and neighbors, and, in one case, a shepherd or three, arrived to share in the joy of the miracle of new life.

The Good Book tells us that in a week or so, a trio of kings arrived at the stable, bringing gifts to pay their respects to the miracle of birth. And so we do the same each Christmas. We give gifts great and small as we share meals lavish and simple with relatives, friends and those who are not as fortunate as we. We celebrate the miracle of birth in great cathedrals and tiny churches, in mansions of note, cottages on the shore, trailers in the woods and, yes, even in shelters, public and flimsy, together and alone.

We celebrate the arrival of new life in languages new and ancient, singing cantatas of old, pop favorites, and three-chord ditties with a coda that twangs and rocks. Hosanna in excelsis! To all readers, Merry Christmas and thank you for taking the time to spend part of your precious holiday season with us.

The Old Scribbler ...