"O little town of Bethlehem…the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

Like most of us, I suppose, I’ve sung these words, over and over again, nearly every December of my life, without really considering their meaning.

When I watched The Muppets Christmas Carol this week, I enjoyed the music and the humor and the artistry, and I was struck by something that probably only students of Christian cultural history–even casual ones like myself–would notice: two competing visions of Christmas, one waning in the 19th century and one on the rise in the same time period.

Sophie proclaims her Auntie Claus. And really, that is the word not just for his fabulous sister but for Santa Claus, too. So many mysteries–how does that elevator get from a New York City penthouse to the North Pole? What exactly does Auntie do from Halloween to Valentine’s Day? Santa declares he couldn’t be ready for Christmas without her help but we don’t see her in the mailroom. Is she sequestered in package wrapping, where Sophia never quite makes it?

Surely there are cloudy Christmas Days, and snowy ones. And of course Christmas Eve lasts twenty-four hours, many of them in daylight. But in my mind Christmas Eve is always nighttime, and Christmas Day is always a sunny, sparkling morning.