In the mid-1940s, the Hollywood Canteen was the hottest and most unusual nightclub in town. The Western-themed club didn’t serve alcohol, but that didn’t prevent Hollywood A-listers from showing up en masse. Everyone wanted to go there, and you might expect it would cost a fortune to get in, but the admission, food, and entertainment were all free.
The main attraction of the Canteen, though, wasn’t its price, but its staff. Every night, a volunteer army showed up straight out of Tinseltown’s Who’s Who. Rita Hayworth was known to serve food, Bette Davis passed out cigarettes, and Laird Cregar washed dishes in the back. The Golden Age’s biggest movie stars, comedians, and singers all joined forces to serve at the Canteen. But the club wasn’t open to just anyone. Admission was strictly reserved for uniformed U.S. Service members headed off to war.
The purpose of the Canteen was to show appreciation and hospitality to America’s finest, but it wasn’t always a place of laughter and levity. One night, Judy Garland was on stage when someone requested she sing what would later become a Christmas standard from her movie Meet Me in St. Louis. According to eyewitnesses, the boisterous room fell silent, and many servicemen were visibly moved by Garland’s performance of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light.
From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.
Knowing her audience was servicemen facing imminent deployment, Garland didn’t want to add to their burdens and hesitated to sing the song. The sentimental ballad tugged on the heartstrings of loneliness and wistfulness, acutely experienced during the holidays. And being a nation at war reframed what having a merry little Christmas meant. It wasn’t about the gifts under the tree, but holding out hope that next year’s Christmas would be better—if the fates allowed.
When You Don’t Feel Merry
Do you feel a similar tension pulling on your heartstrings this Christmas? Perhaps your life and circumstances didn’t turn out the way you planned, but you, too, are longing for the peace and joy Christmas promises. Sometimes, the disconnect of what Christmas should be and what it is jars our souls. We sing of glad tidings and goodwill while we carry deep loss, disappointment, and grief. The season tells us we’re supposed to be merry, but our reality doesn’t always align with that ideal.
The good news is that having a merry little Christmas isn’t a result of favorable circumstances, nor is it granted to us by fate. The reality of our situation is as upside-down as merriment feels when all hope is lost. The incarnation—Christ taking on human flesh and being born in the humblest of circumstances, to the least of these, was the greatest act of love the world has ever known. We know this because the Christmas story doesn’t end at the manger, but culminates at the cross.
An Upside-Down Kingdom
Even though a sword would later pierce her soul when she witnessed her son’s brutal execution on the cross (Luke 2:35), I think Mary understood the upheaval her son’s birth would bring better than anyone. In her song of praise, the Magnificat, she magnifies the Lord for the unsurpassed blessing of bearing her Lord (Luke 1:46-55). Her song is laced with Old Testament allusions to God’s covenantal faithfulness to his people. But she also sang of an upending and reversal of the natural order of things.
We take notice when our social order is disrupted. There’s something mysterious and strange about celebrities waiting on tables, or young men, in the prime of their lives, getting shipped off to war. This is not the natural order of things, or at least, it’s not how it should be. And yet, this is precisely the kind of upside-down, toppling of the status quo and reversal of the curse that Jesus’ birth ushered in.
God didn’t choose the rich or famous to bring forth the Messiah, but he elevated a servant girl of humble estate (48, 52). The proud, he scattered (51), and the mighty, he brought down from their thrones (52). The rich and well-fed he sent away empty, while he filled the hungry with good things (53). Jesus’ birth fulfilled promises to Abraham and extended mercy to every generation thereafter (54, 55). Mary saw it coming, and we now know it’s true: Christ’s birth turned the world upside-down.
Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas
So, this Christmas, which song resonates most in your heart? Does Judy Garland’s song of longing and hoping for a better Christmas next year ring the most true? Or does Mary’s song, which marvels at the upheaval God has already brought, renew your hope? The longing to enjoy a merry little Christmas and to hold out hope for a brighter tomorrow are good and godly desires. We all feel it, deep in our bones.
But regardless of your present circumstances, Christmas is full of hope! It carries the promise that the way things are isn’t the way things will always be. Jesus’ birth means there is coming a better tomorrow when sin, war, and separation will be no more. The kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom that will one day make everything right-side up. There’s another, more hope-filled version of Garland’s song. It’s called “Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas.” It stirs us to sing our hallelujahs and serenade the earth, because he’s already come, and that fact alone makes us joyful.
Have yourself a blessed little Christmas,
Christ the King is born.
Let your voices ring upon this happy morn.
This Christmas, you don’t have to choose between honesty and hope. You can identify with the ache, the waiting, and the uncertainty in Garland’s song, while also anchoring yourself in the truth that Mary’s song proclaimed. His great reversals have already begun, and it didn’t begin in a gilded palace, but in a lowly stable two thousand years ago.
So if this season feels heavy, let the upside-down nature of the kingdom of Christ remind you that God gives grace to the humble, he brings light into the darkness, and he fills the hungry with good things. Have yourself a merry little Christmas, yes—but more than that, have yourself a blessed one.
Christ the King is born, and that changes everything.
Cara
Enjoy this version of Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas
P.S. Do you want to learn more about holy leisure, the topic of my upcoming book? Download this free guide.