To our readers: We needed a little Christmas
As we eagerly turn the calendar, we wish you all a Happy New Year
Angela Lansbury, then 41, as she starred in Mame on Broadway, offering a view of resilience and love.
Dear Readers,
A moment I experienced on the Sunday before Christmas seemed to capture how a lot of us are feeling right now: A full concert hall erupted in cheers after a rollicking performance by chorus and orchestra of the zippy tune “We Need A Little Christmas,” from Jerry Herman’s Broadway musical Mame:
For we’ve grown a little leaner,
Grown a little colder,
Grown a little sadder,
Grown a little older.
And we need a little angel
Sitting on our shoulder.
We need a little Christmas now.
Didn’t it seem to you, too, that the joy of the holiday season was especially needed this year?
There are hard chapters in every individual life — personal losses, family struggles, professional challenges — but rarely is a whole society plunged into a sort of collective despair for seemingly no rational reason, as America has been. That is, the anguish that our nation confronts daily is painful in part because it results from a self-inflicted wound: We elected a petty, cruel, ignorant president, and we allowed the checks that our system might impose on such a leader to atrophy, so that he is enabled by weak sycophants in Congress and the courts.
In these moments, we need to reach out to each other for support. We are strengthened by knowing that there are so many other folks who share both our thoughts and our determination to bring a better day. That’s why I write The Upstate American and welcome you to these weekly conversations — to do my small part in the effort to sustain each other. To borrow from that song Angela Lansbury belted out nearly 60 years ago, I’m listening to that little angel sitting on my shoulder, and passing it along. I think that’s what we each need to do in our own way.
I’m so grateful for your readership, and I hope to be able to share more sustaining thoughts with you all throughout 2026. Happy New Year. Keep hope alive.
With deep appreciation,
Rex
START THE NEW YEAR WITH A WRITING INITIATIVE
LEARN TO WRITE OP-EDS — FOR PRINT, AUDIO AND PODCASTS
If you’d like some training in writing opinion essays — for newspapers, audio or digital platforms — check out the live 90-minute class Rex co-teaches that is offered by Marion Roach Smith’s global platform for writing instruction, The Memoir Project. Click below for information on our upcoming schedule of classes.
Our next class is TUESDAY, JAN. 13 at 1 p.m. Eastern.
Why not join us?
Lots of our students have been well published — and you can be, too!
BONUS CONTENT
GET MORE FROM THE UPSTATE AMERICAN
IF YOU’D LIKE TO HEAR MORE from Rex Smith, check www.wamc.org for his weekly on-air commentary aired by Northeast Public Radio. Here’s a link to the latest essay, which is an earlier version of this week’s column, adapated for audio.
AND IF YOUR INTEREST IS SPECIFIC TO AMERICAN MEDIA, you can download the podcast of The Media Project, the 30-minute nationally-syndicated discussion that Rex leads each week on current issues in journalism. In the seven states where Northeast Public Radio is heard, the program airs at 3 p.m. each Friday and is rebroadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday. You can tune in live, too, at www.wamc.org, or download the podcast there. It has been called “a half-hour of talk about finding and telling the truth.”