WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 25, 2019
A Christmas Message from the Editor-in-Chief,
Claire Lehmann

As I write this, a bushfire about 18 kilometers away near the New South Wales town of Nowra, burns. While this one has recently been declared 'under control,' dozens of other fires have affected large parts of Australia, with an estimated four million hectares of land scorched.

While Christmas in Australia is always hot, this year is different. Many Australians are on alert, checking for warnings from the Royal Fire Service to evacuate.

Driving into the local town before Christmas, however, and one is struck by how the beat goes on. Cars are being loaded up with frozen chooks, fresh oysters, cartons of beer, toys for children. This has all continued while smoke fills the air.

Experiencing Christmas in a time of crisis is unusual. We generally expect to decompress, not be on alert. Yet I am reminded that the original story of Christmas is one of crisis as well. It's the story of Joseph trying to find a safe place for Mary to give birth, and a trough for cattle feed when there is no room at the inn.

The immortal story of nativity scene is one of hope and wonder. The symbolism of Jesus himself coming from a manger and then being able to transform the world through his moral vision is a testament to the heroic individual, an archetype that is foundational to Western Civilisation. But it's also a story of interdependence and family -- a new mother being looked after by her husband -- and strangers pulling together in a time of emergency.

This Christmas, let us give thanks to our loved ones, but also the people whom we've never met, but who are there for us when we need them. The fire-fighters, the emergency workers, the volunteers, our neighbours. And let us give thanks to that gentle human compassion we have for one another that is never more apparent than in times of crisis.

I wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas, and I look forward to being in touch with you all again in the new year.
--Claire Lehmann


Greg Ellis reads Claire Lehmann’s essay about the meaning of Christmas. It was published in Quillette on 25th December 2018.

The story of Thessalonica and how Christianity gave Western societies the moral vocabulary to transcend raw power and the bigotry of tribalism.

By  Kevin Mims
"White Christmas has been called a romantic comedy, a buddy picture (or 'bromance'), a musical, and a holiday film. Curiously, I’ve never seen it listed in the war genre, which is the category in which it really belongs," writes Kevin Mims.

A Christmas Message from our Canadian Editor, Jonathan Kay

When I work in public spaces, I sometimes am approached by fans (and critics) of Quillette , who are drawn to the Quillette decal that decorates the back of my computer screen. “I’ll let you get back to your editing,” one friendly neighbour said to me after a recent, somewhat typical encounter. “You’re probably working on something very serious .”

If you are a Quillette fan who spends time on social media, you will be familiar with the overheated criticisms launched at us by those who are convinced (despite all evidence) that our publication caters to this or that fringe ideology. But the people I meet socially (normal folk who don’t count their daily Twitter mentions before bedtime) embrace another, unrelated stereotype in regard to Quillette editors: that we are bookish eggheads without any taste for life’s social pleasures.

This stereotype is untrue. And this being the holidays, a time for friends and family, I would like to take this opportunity to debunk it. Just because we publish articles with titles such as Villanova and the Compulsory Pieties of Higher Education and Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class—A Status Update doesn’t mean we don’t know how to have a good time.

That said, working at Quillette often can feel like an anti-social experience, because we operate as five semi-autonomous editors dispersed over four time zones, typically collaborating asynchronously by file transfer. But once in a blue moon, we find ourselves in the same city, at the same events, and we always find a way to share a meal, have a drink, and remind one another that we are actual human beings, and not just disembodied email addresses.

I always enjoy these meetings, especially as they provide me with an opportunity to learn about the peculiar cultural quirks of Australia (Claire Lehmann), Sweden (Paulina Neuding) and Britain (Jamie Palmer and Toby Young).

And so, in the holiday spirit, I thought I would share a story from the time last winter when we all gathered in Toronto for a Quillette party . As this was the first time my colleagues had been to Toronto, I was determined to use the occasion to teach them about Canadians manners and customs, including our love of ice hockey. On the day they arrived, in fact, I arranged for us all to see a popular junior-pro hockey team play at a large Toronto arena.

I had expected that my colleagues would know little about hockey. After all, how much do I know about, say, Australian rules football? But I confess that their low level of knowledge did surprise me. And so during the game, I dutifully stepped them through the rules and even a basic primer on strategy. I thought I was making progress, until one of them—I shall not say which—asked me a question when the game was one third complete.

“Hey—how come there are suddenly so many players on the ice?” my colleague asked. “And where’s the puck?”

I surveyed the scene on the ice and immediately understood the nature of his confusion.

“Well,” I said. “Do you see that many of the people on the ice are, in fact, small children?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“And did you notice how they don’t have sticks, and that they are skating around the ice carrying a banner promoting a local hospital charity?” I asked.

“Now that you mention it, that does seem unusual,” he said.

“Quite so,” I said. “Also, did you notice the mascot dressed as a large bear who is kicking a beach ball around the ice? And that this same mascot is operating a T-shirt cannon, which he is firing at audience members who have most enthusiastically heeded the announcer’s request to ‘Make Some Noise’?”

My colleague’s mask of incomprehension suddenly blossomed into a smile of realization. And he seemed to understand that what we were watching was actually, in fact, the first-period intermission.

I smiled, too, for my work here was done. I don’t think I produced any new hockey fans that day, but at least now they were one step closer to understanding this strange thing we call Canadian culture.

This is my third Christmas as a Quillette editor. It is a job I love, and it ranks high on the list of reasons I count to be thankful this holiday season. To all our readers, Canadian and otherwise, I wish you a safe and happy Christmas. I look forward to reconnecting with all of you in the new year.
--Jonathan Kay