Sometime soon, chances are someone will ask you if you’re in the Christmas spirit. The first I felt it this year was a couple weeks ago, as I attended Elf Jr. The Musical, at Alexander Galt Regional High School. While I’ve experienced the sentiment to various degrees throughout my life, it remains a somewhat mysterious thing.
A common explanation for this phenomenon points to the magical veil that has been built into the holiday over time. On a yearly basis, adults have the challenge of maintaining the veil for children, and in the process of doing so they are likely to relive their own magical childhood experiences. This — so the theory goes — would be how and why Christmas cheer is so widely experienced, and not only by religious people. While this has merit as an explanation, I can’t help but sense that there may be more to it than that.
According to Buddy the Elf, the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear, and since this was a musical, there was plenty of singing going on, and cheer was certainly being spread. Before the play even began, Christmas songs were playing over the sound system, setting the mood.
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