University of Virginia Library

'Take The Clauswitz Out Of Christmas!'

By DAVID FOSTER

Perhaps as a professional
Scrooge (aren't all
out-of-staters?), I'm imagining
things. But evidently the ghost
of Christmas present is
enjoying the Yule season as
much as anyone on the
Grounds this year. And
according to a sizable number
of students, as well as faculty
and even merchants, about the
most prevalent signs of the
dis-spirited spectre around the
University thus far have been a
few noble attempts to finish
off the gift list between classes
and a disgustingly tedious
inventory of which textbooks
to drag home for the
make-or-possibly-break.
Otherwise, Xmas seems to have
been temporarily abandoned to
the Grinch.

"There's just no such thing
as Christmas at the
University," verified third-year
man Wayne Coates. "That's the
problem. What's there around
here that puts you in the
Christmas spirit...as far as the
University?"

"Well, there's the Pancake
House," offered Jan Hensley,
another third-year student
"...and the Christmas
tree....The bells over at the
church played Christmas carols
today.

"There's not really much
else," she admitted. "Why
doesn't some organization
organize some sort of
Christmas activity? Do
something to give the rest of us
some Christmas spirit."

"Wouldn't you say there are
just as many Christmas
parties?" rationalized
fourth-year IFC President Bob
Byron. Actually, Mr. Byron's
not pretending to enjoy his
Christmas yet either.

"I don't think anybody is.
It's just no Christmas until
you're home. Christmas isn't
school; Christmas is the
family...and even when you're
with friends, it's just still not
Christmas, especially when
you've still got your studies to
worry about."

Quite a few upper-class
men, in fact, have apparently
adjusted to a similar holiday
moratorium: And the
dorm-dwellers seem only
slightly less realistic
themselves.

"That's a killer," claimed
first-year man Bob Alderman,
"having finals hanging over
your head when you go home
for Christmas. You can't really
leave the University and forget
it all."

"I wish we could get out
about a week before Christmas
so we could do out shopping,
etc. It's hard to get home
Saturday and only have one
shopping day left."

"I don't really get excited
about Christmas," added one
Stoic, "so it doesn't bother me
too much." That's the spirit....

Actually, a few scattered
harbingers did come to mind:
most prominently, "Mr.
Shannon's tree!"-in unison,
yet.

"Of course, we had the big
dinner at Contract–green and
red tablecloths, the works."

Another big help was the
hall party, complete with
eggnog and additives, (or vice
versa). "We just sat down out
in the hall and sang Christmas
carols for a couple of hours.
We read the story of Christmas
from the Bible. It was just a
really nice party."

Third floor Humphreys, on
the other hand, looked like a
perpetual Christmas party,
although the standard
complaints still registered:
"V.P.I.'s been out for two
weeks, and we're still here!"
(Really, what can you plant in
the dead of winter?)

Nevertheless, the girls
admitted that "A lot of people
have just been wandering up to
look at our Christmas
decoration. They look kind of
sad, you know? Especially the
boys. Most guys haven't gone
to the trouble of decorating."

"We had to decorate the
dorm," insisted one resident.
"We're missing it at home–so
we have to bring it here."

"So much of Christmas is
just going home."

Mommy Stores

In addition, "You're forced
to do all your Christmas
shopping here and they just
don't have much of a selection
here. But there's no choice if
you want to get it done."

For the first-year man,
theoretically without a car,
that can cause
problems...though perhaps not
all as severe as that of the
gentleman who complained
that "It's hard to go and find
the 'mommy stores' and
'daddy stores'."

Mommy stores and daddy
stores?

"There are only restaurants
and drug stores within walking
distance," he continued. "The
Corner doesn't have much."

"The fraternity parties were
the first semblance of
Christmas spirits I've seen
around here," cracked a friend.

Third floor Dabney on the

CD/T Wheeler

Christmas At Barracks Road:

"They'll Always Have Money"

other hand, was creating their
own spirit (figuratively
speaking). "We had our own
little party and everybody
exchanged gifts and
everything," boasted one,
although admitting that "It's
different getting into the spirit
with your friends and with
your family."

Any other Christmas clues
around the Grounds?

"Sure," replied another.
"The Rotunda has candles in
the windows, and President
Shannon's house has
decorations and a Christmas
tree...The hospital has a
Christmas tree on it too."

"There's some but there's
not enough," he concluded.

What about Christmas in
Charlottesville?

"I think you could do it,"
one optimist ventured. "You'd
do the same things you would
at home give gifts to
everybody and sit around and
sing Christmas carols....Singing
Christmas carols helps a lot.
The neatest thing would be if it
snowed."

Wayne Coates might have
had a more realistic solution:
"I'd get a ten-dollar roll of
quarters and head down to
Sheriff." "Sheriff," for the less
well-traveled, inhabits the
lower level of Poe's and
allegedly dispenses free pin-ball
games like perpetual Christmas.

Indeed, much of the
problem may well be attitudes
like that of the aspiring
reductionist who claimed,
"You don't associate this place
with anything but studying
anyway."

Asst. Admissions Dean
James Kinard, for example,
sees no reason. Christmas and
the University should be at all
incompatible.

All-Nighters

"I think part of it is that
you're getting out later. I think
that at this point in the
semester students are quite
aware of what's facing them
academically."

On the other hand, "I don't
think University students have
too much to do. Each
instructor makes his own rules.
Since time began, students
have complained about having
too much work to do. I don't
think that the student here has
too much work to do, unless
he puts everything off until the
end of the semester, and then
of course it's all-nighters."

"I sort of enjoy it,"
continued Mr. Kinard, "getting
out and meeting people. Most
people I know say Christmas is
too commercialized, and I'm
inclined to agree with them. I
think most people tend to
celebrate Christmas with their
family."

Mr. Pappas of the
Government Dept., on the
other hand, has more extensive
plans: In West Virginia, "We
usually think of peach brandy
as the proto-Christian
institution, about this time of
year."

In a less delirious vein, Mr.
Pappas admits that "the
scheduling they have now is a
bad thing. They ought to let
'em out about the 20th and let
'em run wild until about the
first of February."

What about exams?

"Well, you'd have them
before Christmas. Christmas is
a pagan holiday anyway, and
since we're a post-Christian
nation with all the pagan
Bacchanal revelries, we might
as well just institutionalize this
procedure for students, too."

"Students your age should
be allowed to revel in
Dionysian orgies for the next
couple of weeks, instead of
having the grim spectre of
exams hanging over them like
the sword of Damocles."

What about his own plans,
or lack of?

CD/Bob Humphrey

"I expect to institute
hopefully a personal revival,"
he began, "a reacquainting
with the mysteries of the
grape, the nectar of the peach,
the fragrance of the apricot, in
their essential rather than
existential form..to imbibe
large quantities of this
ambrosial 'spirit', shall we
say?"

"I don't see any sense in
having Christmas," he
continued. "It's something
that's become unbiblical.
Actually, I've been grappling
with this problem the last
couple of days, driving down
listening to 'The World
Tomorrow,' and 'The Mull
Singing Convention.' I reckon
as a pagan holiday and so
forth, it's non-Christian; but as
a Christian, I think we could
safely acquiesce to some of the
merry aspects of
paganism....There's nothing
wrong with this, as long as we
don't confuse the celebration
of Christ's birthday with what
we normally call
Christmas–that is, buying and
spending and so forth."

"You're torn between two
points–" (actually I was utterly
lost) "–One, that it is one of
the two focal points of the
Christian year; and on the
other hand, it's a racket."

"I think an appropriate
comment for the Nixon
administration would be: Take
the Clauswitz out of
Christmas!"

Does no one dream simply
of a white Christmas anymore?

Well at least one faction
does. "I think one thing I've
really been disappointed in this
year is the weather," said
Linton Widner, manager of the
downtown Woolworth's. "If
we'd had a little bit of snow,
especially this week, it would
have really turned the people
out."

"After you've been in it
awhile, it gets to kind of be the
same old thing over and over."

"It's pretty much the
same," concurred Herbert
Haynes, manager of the
Barracks Road Roses.

"You know, everyone's
gonna have money at
Christmas. I don't care who
they are, they'll have money at
Christmas if they have to beg
or steal for it, they'll have
money."

What about his own
holiday?

"I never have a chance to
enjoy Christmas. I told my
wife the other day, I really
hate Christmas...I really do. I
really don't know any way to
remedy that in the retail