It’s simple to really feel invisible throughout Christmas whereas dwelling on the margins. The fact relentlessly promoted in the course of the holidays doesn’t seem to have any room on the inn for the down and out, for individuals who are estranged from their households, depressed, or broke, not to mention in hassle with the regulation. Simply because the espresso in Glengarry Glen Ross is for closers, Christmas is for winners. And yearly, the curious style of the “Unhappy Christmas Track” makes an attempt to appropriate the document by defiantly seeing those that reside on the season’s edge.

The Unhappy Christmas Track has an extended and storied custom. We’re all conversant in the oeuvre: Songs about Final Christmases, Christmases Blue and White, and a number of other lonely Christmases. Many beloved Christmas carols, like “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” additionally fall throughout the Unhappy Christmas Track custom, as fellow Christ And Pop Tradition author Chris Marchand has identified.

One of many extra poignant entries within the pantheon of Unhappy Christmas Songs could also be Tom Waits’ basic “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis” from his 1978 album Blue Valentine.

Waits’ inimitable barroom baritone, with help from a minimal piano association, paints a vivid image of a lonely soul dwelling on the fringe of Christmas.

Once I found this darkish gem over 15 years in the past, this saddest of unhappy songs grew to become a part of my Introduction worship. Its plain-spoken lyrics transport me each time into the presence of somebody not meant to be seen. And in her presence, confronted by all that humanity, I reckon with what the approaching of Jesus may imply for somebody like her and, by extension, somebody like me.

A Lady on the Edge

Sharing album area with songs about runaways, gangbangers, and thieves, “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis” is one other showcase for Waits’ ongoing preoccupation with the hard-luck life. On this case, Waits relays, with out judgment, the contents of a Christmas dispatch from the titular intercourse employee to an outdated acquaintance named Charlie. Waits’ inimitable barroom baritone, with help from a minimal piano association, paints a vivid image of a lonely soul dwelling on the fringe of Christmas.

Not that she sees herself as a loser, after all. Like most Christmas playing cards, hers is all about success, no less than initially. She’s pregnant and has a superb man who guarantees to take care of the kid, although it’s not his. She’s off medicine and booze. There was a tough patch the place she “virtually went loopy,” however she bought by means of it and is again on the town for good. “I feel I’m pleased,” she tells Charlie at one level.

She even permits herself a second to be philosophical and replicate on what her life can be like if she nonetheless had all the cash she spent on medicine:

I’d purchase me a used automobile lot
And I wouldn’t promote any of ’em
I’d simply drive a special automobile every single day
Dependin’ on how I really feel

After which, in a heartbreaking flip, within the final stanza, the narrator comes clear. All the pieces she simply shared is a lie. The reality is that she’s in jail, wants cash for a lawyer, and is hoping that Charlie may also help. And along with her closing phrases, she sweetens her entreaties by letting Charlie know that (presumably along with his assist) she might quickly be again out within the streets–and accessible.

I’ll be eligible for parole
Come Valentine’s Day

A God Who Sees

Prostitutes aren’t the primary individuals who come to thoughts once we take into consideration Christmas. In contrast to virgins, they don’t seem in carols or Christmas Eve sermons. They don’t make for in style tree ornaments or collectible figurines in Nativity scenes. It’s as if Christmas just isn’t meant for them. For all intents and functions, prostitutes are invisible, however solely within the Ralph Ellison that means of the phrase: They’re invisible just because we refuse to see them.

The irony right here is that the Savior, whose beginning we have fun in the course of the season, didn’t look previous the prostitutes of his time. As soon as, a prostitute made her strategy to Jesus whereas he was consuming with a non secular chief and proceeded to worship him so ardently that the spiritual chief grew to become offended. Jesus responded by forcing the chief to acknowledge the prostitute earlier than him: “Do you see this lady?” Jesus pointedly requested the chief earlier than turning to the girl and ministering to her (Luke 7:44-48, ESV).

Much more telling is that God noticed to it {that a} prostitute grew to become an indispensable a part of the Christmas story. Earlier than telling us concerning the beginning of Christ, Matthew’s gospel tells us about his household tree. And in a lineage that features such family names as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and King David, he additionally mentions a lady named Rahab (Matthew 1:5). Discerning Bible readers will acknowledge her because the Jericho prostitute who threw in her lot with God’s folks by serving to Joshua’s males escape town earlier than the partitions fell. In different phrases, with out Rahab the prostitute, there isn’t any Christ, and with out Christ, there isn’t any Christmas.

A Silent Night time

I don’t know if he nonetheless does this, however again within the day, Waits at all times carried out “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis” as a medley with “Silent Night time,” the basic carol a couple of coming “daybreak of redeeming grace.” To my information, he has by no means defined why he did this. Maybe he discovered the holy/profane juxtaposition intriguing or humorous. Regardless of the motive, it’s an impressed pairing.

By seeing her with out judgment, Waits renders one specific prostitute in Minneapolis seen once more at Christmastime. And in doing so, he restores her humanity, even when solely in a fallen state that’s ever craving for freedom—even the modest freedom of driving a special automobile every single day. By exposing her fallen humanity, and our willful blindness to it, Waits’ tune confronts us with a world in want of the redeeming grace of “Silent Night time”—a world in want of a Savior who can see all these dwelling on the fringe of Christmas.

And what’s extra consistent with the vacation spirit than that?