For me, one song seems to stand out in a given holiday season. It’s a song I hear early in the season, just before Thanksgiving, and then it reverbs through my head leading up to today.

This year, it’s this song. The reason has only a little to do with the music.

I think it’s because this is a very bleak mid-winter.

“In the Bleak Mid-WInter” started out as a poem by Christina Rosetti of England in 1872. She came from an apparently talented family – her brother was a prominent painter. Her father, also a poet, fled Italy (I know you were wondering how Rosetti could be English) because of political upheaval.

The most common music to the song comes from Gustav Holst, who is famous for composing “The Planets.”

Her poem and the lyrics to the song are problematic. 

One is that it doesn’t really snow a lot in Bethlehem. Apparently, it’s possible, partly because Bethlehem is at an elevation of 2,400 feet. But the average high in December is 57. 

So when Rosetti invokes an image of “Snow had fallen, snow on snow. Snow on snow,” she might have been looking out the window in London.

Secondly, some theologians wonder why the world would buckle when the savior arrives. “Heaven and earth shall flee away, when He comes to reign” is part of the second stanza.

I think it’s better to overlook the questionable part and see his song as a metaphor. And, when you do, I think you can find the relevance.

As I said, this is a tough time.

And we’ve spent most of 2025 flailing about, looking for some way to change this, despite the power that has amassed against basic humanity.

The world feels “as cold as iron,” as Rosetti writes. 

But there is a moral force out there. You and your friends and your loved ones know the difference between right and wrong, between strength and petty weakness, between fulfilling the teachings of whoever or whatever we believe in and bowing before a golden idol. 

When I started writing this, I ran off a list of all the things going wrong among us. But it’s a waste to list them – if only because there have been even more outrages in the past couple of days. 

And it’s deliberate. It was always the plan when Trump took office the second time to flood the zone with outrage. He’s done it.

What can we do? We’re solitary figures up against old, greedy, wanton men determined to divvy up the world among themselves.

“What can I give Him, poor as I am,” Rosetti’s protagonist asks. “If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb.”

If I were Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Ellison or Jeff Bezos, I’d give away 90% of my fortune to solve the world’s problems instead of finding ways to make more money and pay less in taxes.

That’s not in the song. But I think that’s the sentiment Rosetti would want expressed.

And it ends with this: “Yet what I can I give Him, I can give my heart.”

Heart. You and I can care whether families are separated for the sin of trying to escape poverty and survive. You and I can care whether those with the fewest resources get access to care to preserve and strengthen their lives. You and I can care if the planet sizzles.  

We can care if people who aren’t white Christian men get a fair shot at what used to be called the American Dream before January 20, 2025.

It’s great if you can donate money or protest or volunteer or help in any way. But even that’s not required.

What’s required is to care. To not be numbed by the torrent of hate and greed. To not worship false idols or golden calves or tacky golden damn everything.

Look around you at the people you love and hold them close. Look around at your community and applaud the array of people who contribute.

We can give our heart. That’s how we start to honor our common humanity. And make next Christmas not so bleak.

Merry Christmas! Here is James Taylor’s version of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=278y1yTr83w&list=RD278y1yTr83w&start_radio=1