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As the year draws to a close and we find ourselves once again in the thick of the holiday season, there are reminders all around us that this is the time to be merry and bright. There’s always a sign or an advert proclaiming joy to the world and goodwill towards whomever or a song telling us it’s the most wonderful time of the year. But in the year 2020, it certainly doesn’t feel like that.
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Between covid and lockdowns and closures and being forever baffled that March is three months away when it WAS JUST MARCH YESTERDAY. WHAT HAPPENED--well, it’s hard to find things to be happy about. It’s hard to simply try to be positive.
Traditions have had to be severely altered, celebrations are to take place via zoom or at distances further than we would like and you can’t believe you’re thinking it, but you wish your Aunt Hilda could give you that painfully squeezy hug that you usually hate this year.
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And as I, myself, tried to be cheery putting up my holiday decor, there was a song that brought a bright smile to my face. “We Need a Little Christmas” from Mame.
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Now, if you haven’t heard of Mame or you recognize the song title from Glee’s Christmas Collection and Glee’s Christmas Collection only: I don’t blame you. Even with it being among the more popular of Jerry Herman’s musicals, it still often finds itself in the shadows of La Cage Aux Follies and fully eclipsed by Hello, Dolly! But Mame is a wonderful show, as fabulous and as bright as the titular character herself. And I think we can learn a thing or two from her in the dark days of December.
Based off of the 1956 Broadway play Auntie Mame and 1958 film of the same name, Mame was a 1966 musical starring the one and only Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur. It follows the utterly bonkers life of Mame Dennis, an eccentric free spirited wealthy woman who finds herself in charge of her young nephew, Patrick, following the death of her brother. This show is as wild and as fun as the female lead; there’s death and love and loss and the stock market crash and a song on a fake moon and southern ‘hospitality’ and an off stage avalanche. Through all of it, Mame herself retains a joyous spirit, a sporting sense of humor and a positive outlook through all the failures life chucks at her .
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Mame’s favorite credo is ‘Life’s a banquet, and most poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death’. And does she ever embody it. When we first meet her she’s holding a big grand party just because “It’s today!” she says. For Mame, the glass is full, even when to everyone else it’s empty.
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Which brings me back to “We Need a Little Christmas”. I didn’t actually first discover this song through Mame, it’s the third of ten tracks on an ancient ‘Billboard’s Family Christmas Classics CD’ that my mother insists on putting on everytime we decorate. It’s always meant the holidays for me. And even in this dark destitute year, hearing it crackle through dying speakers brought the tiniest bit of Christmas Spirit into my house.
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In the musical, Mame is at a pretty low point. She’s lost her money in the Wall Street Crash, failed at acting and been fired from a production, every other job she tries has been a mess, and she can’t even pay her servants. All she has is her separation pay and her loyal employees/friends. In any other show this would be time for perhaps a sorrowful song or an ‘I Want’ number or the song where the supporting characters try to help the lead. But not in Mame. With her nephew home from school and her servants still at her side Mame herself declares it an Early Christmas, giving out presents she bought months before and insisting they decorate right away. Though the little group is confused and hesitant at first, with Patrick declaring ‘But Auntie Mame! It’s one week past Thanksgiving Day now!’(Oh how times have changed) they’re all soon caught up in it, happily making Christmas right there and then.
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It’s a happy reprieve for the characters, caught up in the mess of the world. One of my favorite, and I think most significant lyrics being:
For I've grown a little leaner / Grown a little colder /Grown a little sadder /Grown a little older / And I need a little angel / Sitting on my shoulder / Need a little Christmas now
It’s sung by Mame before the rest of the group finally join in fully with the merriment and sing along. Mame is always a positive, wonderful person, through-out the whole show. But that doesn’t mean she’s blind to her struggles. She acknowledges it, accepts it in these lines. She hasn’t been unaffected by her losses. But at the same time, she hasn’t let it crush her. She hasn’t let it all break her down completely. The world is cold and sad and in a way, so is she, but she isn’t negative about it. She’s still Auntie Mame and what she, and all her loved ones need, is a little Christmas to bring some joy back.
Haven't I taught you well / To live each living day?
asks Mame. She’s talking to her little band of friends and family, of course. Referencing their adventures and her grand parties and ideals of enjoying every aspect of life. It’s a way of getting them in on the fun, of having them accept this very early Christmas, but I think there’s something the audience can take away from it too. Sometimes days go by and they suck. Sometimes you do nothing and they seem so dark and there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. But there is a simple, glorious joy in being alive. In just existing and being here. That’s something to celebrate. To revel in. You’re here. You’re alive. You’re living today. Even Mame herself needs that little ‘Christmas’
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I truly think “Christmas” in this song, doesn’t just mean the holiday. Christmas represents a positive moment, a happy time, just a small spark of joy when it’s needed most. It’s life, in a sense. And it should be celebrated. Mame’s perspective on life, on the need to relish each little moment even when it seems hopeless and ridiculous made me pause a bit as I was placing candles and candy canes. I did need that ‘Christmas’, that happy escape. This year has changed me and has affected me in so many unforeseen ways and I’m not going to pretend like it hasn’t. It has affected so many countless others too. It just gives us all the more reason to revel in life as best we can, not in spite of the year, but because of it.
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Mame is one of the brightest, bubbly and positive female Broadway leads I’ve ever encountered. Her strength and kindness sees her through a lot of nonsense with a smile and snappy witty comment. It’s something to be admired, and something we should all try and strive for as we head into the holidays.
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I think in the last waning moments of this impossible year, we need a little music, need a little laughter, need a little singing ringing through the rafters. Perhaps we need a little snappy 'happy ever after'. More than anything, we need a little ‘Christmas’ now.