Topanga has its own special kind of holiday magic. Join us for a special look at some of our favorite Canyon shops that offer creative, unique, thoughtful, and delightful gifts, including many things that can’t be found anywhere else—treasures and delights. And whatever holidays you celebrate, dear reader, and however you celebrate them, we at TNT hope that they will be merry and bright! Cover design by Urs Baur
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1863
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the words to the poem quoted above on Christmas Day in 1863 at what was not only the bleakest period of his own life but arguably the most divisive, violent, and despair-filled chapter of American history.
Longfellow’s oldest son, Charles, ran away and joined the Union Army in March of 1862, at the start of the American Civil War. “Dear Papa, you know for how long a time I have been wanting to go to the war,” he wrote to his father. “I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer, I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good.” He signed the letter “Yours affectionately Charley.” He was eighteen.
Longfellow received word that Christmas that Charles had received severe injuries at the Battle of Mine Run, Virginia, and was not expected to survive, or if he did, he would likely be paralyzed because the bullet grazed his spine. Longfellow wasn’t the only parent receiving bad news from the war that Christmas. More than six hundred men died at Mine Run, and 1500 were injured, and that was a “minor” battle. More than 51,000 died or were injured at Gettysburg, 37,000 at the Siege of Vicksburg earlier that year. More than a hundred thousand died that year in the war and that number does include the people who were collateral damage, the ones whose homes, towns and communities were disrupted or destroyed because of the conflict.
“I have been through a great deal of trouble and anxiety,” Longfellow wrote to a friend. He expresses his inconsolable sorrow in his poem:
And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
This holiday season, more than a hundred and sixty years later, many are feeling disunity, hopelessness, despair over the state of the world, the state of the country, the state of our home where the scars of fire and disaster are still fresh.
Longfellow resolves his poem with the belief that “the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.” He leaves us with the image of the world, revolving around “from night to day, and from darkness to light.”
Charles Longfellow survived his Civil War injuries and went on to other adventures—including a twenty-month sojourn in Japan, a country few Westerners had the opportunity to visit in the nineteenth century.
Henry Longfellow remained a productive and popular poet, living for almost another 20 years. Today, critics regard his poetry as sentimental, moralistic, and cliche, but the words of his Christmas poem, the pain they contain and the message of hope, are timeless—or timely—depending on the moment in history. The idea that the world is revolving from darkness to light resonates.
The winter holidays, going all the way back to the earliest observances of the Winter Solstice, offer an opportunity to pause and reflect. Once the Winter Solstice—the longest night of the year—arrives on December 21, the days will begin to grow longer. In the Northern Hemisphere, we will be closer to spring than we are to autumn. The Solstice, Christmas, and Hanukkah are holidays that share a message of hope. They offer the promise of light at the darkest time of the year.
This week marks the one year anniversary of the Franklin Fire in Malibu, the prelude to the catastrophic January 2025 firestorms. The one year anniversary of that devastating month is almost here. We still have a long way to go on the road to recovery, but we have come far, and there’s nothing wrong with pausing to celebrate that.
Here at TNT, we wish all of our readers all of the joys of the season.
Stay safe, be well. Happy holidays!
