The week before Christmas is a tough one even for ordinary folks with ordinary problems.

You’ve probably put up your tree by now. For the blessed few, the evening when you decorated was like a Hallmark ad on television. The tree fit perfectly into the living room. No ornaments were broken. You sang carols and drank hot cider, and the children were angels.

For the rest of us, a successful evening of tree-trimming often means shoving an oversized tree through the front door and into a bucket of water, and then decorating that tree, all without shooting down our marriage, deciding that our children really were switched at birth, or heading for the nearest taproom. Disasters pile up like rush hour traffic on this special evening. The lights don’t work. Ornaments break. You spill eggnog on the cat. Your gangly teen decides to play music from hell. Your daughter sulks in the corner when told that she can’t spend Christmas in Florida with friends. Your 4-year-old gives the tree a yank, and the sudden crash acts as a reminder that you forgot to tie that top bough to the walls with fish line.

In our house it is my wife who enjoys cluttering up the place with Christmas decorations. She even wears Christmas clothing while decorating — vests with wreaths, Christmas pins, red-and-green skirts. Meanwhile, I stomp around muttering like Scrooge on a bad day, balefully glaring as box after box of decorations emerge from the attic, decorations that soon transform my rundown manse into a gaudy rundown manse. We have enough reindeer in our house to outfit a fleet of sleds for Santa and enough Santas to man that fleet. (One decoration that does give me pleasure is a Santa Claus rug for the bathroom; I take perverse satisfaction in walking over Santa’s schnoz — that’s short for schnozzle — whenever nature calls.)

Then there are the other plagues of the season — the stream of visitors, the Christmas cards, the toys that break or won’t work, that gray feeling that occurs on Christmas morning once the fortress of artfully wrapped presents has been thoroughly sacked and you’re kicking your way through wrapping paper to the coffee in the kitchen, the tendency to lose sight not only of the real meaning of Christmas but also of your shoes because of all the weight you’ve added after two weeks of nonstop eating.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many aspects of Christmas I love — guys dressed up like Santa Claus, Santa Claus himself, Christmas music, sappy movies, Midnight Mass, and a few other items too sentimental even for a family newspaper.

Nevertheless, Christmas is hard on many of us, and particularly hard, I think, on book people. Readers tend to be folks who don’t like a lot of fuss and bother, yet that’s exactly what Christmas is. The Yuletide smacks everyone upside the head with a sledgehammer of fuss and bother. There’s always another present to buy, another card to write, another project to complete, another merrymaker wishing you tidings of joy when all you wanted was an easy chair, a novel, and a cup of tea. Here are some suggestions, then, to enable distressed readers to continue the pleasures of their vice while keeping unwanted elements of the season at arm’s length:

1. On the day before the relatives arrive, visit the library and select half a dozen or more books — preferably fat books — on a topic of interest to you. Stack these tomes prominently on the kitchen table. When asked why the books are there, explain to your relatives that you are researching a particular topic and that you must use some of the holidays to meet a personal deadline. If anyone questions you about this mysterious project or its deadline, simply respond by staring fixedly at the floor and saying as intensely and grimly as possible, “Look, I just have to do it, all right?” This tactic, which works quite well for adolescents, is so effective that people will leave you undisturbed for hours on end. If someone approaches you at all, it will be on tiptoe and in whispers.

2. If pestered by teenagers, command them to gather in the living room for a reading of “A Christmas Carol,” a lovely custom that will annoy them into leaving the room and avoiding you for the remainder of their visit. If any of the teens remain with you, then you may consider them fellow travelers and go into hiding together.

3. If your reading is interrupted by children under 6 years of age, show them the old Alistair Sim movie of “A Christmas Carol.” This film terrified me as a child and will do the same for today’s younger set. Parents cannot be upset with you; after all, you are merely introducing their progeny to a classic story. Whenever one of the little tykes thereafter disturbs you, you merely have to say in a muffled tone, “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past!” and you’ll find yourself peacefully alone.

4. Always, always, always keep a book in hand. If you see a member of the household approaching with that look of “Come hither and help me hang another 50 decorations,” open the book immediately and pretend to be lost in the world of prose. Under no circumstance should you take your eyes from the page. Answer only with “Hmmmm” or “In a minute, my pet,” and the arresting officer may soon give up and move past you.

5. Suggest that the household go caroling at the local library. Tell them that anyone may carol at a nursing home or a police station, but that librarians also require the comforts of the season. Once you arrive at the library, your bibliophilic revelers will quickly realize that bellowing out Christmas carols will not work in a public library. Use the ensuing confusion to make your escape into the stacks and grab a few more books. When the others track you down and express a wish to take their merriment elsewhere, tell them that you’ll catch up soon. If they insist on your presence, put that crazy gleam back in your eye and tell them that you simply must have this time to work on your special project.

Sooner or later, of course, your defenses will crumble. The onslaught of the season is unrelenting; the heavy demands of the final days of Advent will erode even the thickest walls of the book lover’s castle. When that happens, you will do well to remember the old saying: “If you can’t beat ’em, read aloud to ’em.” Go to your bookcase, pull out that oldfangled book whose very name means The Book, and turn to the second chapter of Luke. Gather the others of your household to your side, young and old alike, and share with them in these our troubled times the ancient words, the words that glow with the soft warmth of pennies polished by time.

In fact, brave and gentle reader, why wait any longer? Why not read the verses aloud now? Wherever you are reading this article at this very moment — at home, at work, in a restaurant or cafe — I humbly ask you to share the words below with the person seated nearest you. Read the words right now to your husband, your true love, your friend, your boss, your students, your child. If the person nearest you is a stranger, and you feel shy or awkward, simply say to the stranger, “This may sound weird, but this guy in the newspaper has asked me to share something with you, and I’d like to do it.” Politicians, bombs, and treaties will never bring true peace to the world. True peace begins in the heart, and it speaks heart to heart. Share the old words. The heart you touch may even be your own.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manager.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville.)

 

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