Written by Savannah Edwards

In a culture saturated with Christmas movies, where The Hallmark Channel allocates money to producing new Christmas movies every year, and with so many options for laughter and cheer, I find it interesting the most popular Christmas movie of all time is about suicide. At the time of its release, It’s a Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart, didn’t perform well at the box office, but has since become a fan and critic favorite, so much so that it manages to fill theaters 76 years later. George Bailey (Stewart) has given up. After years of unfortunate events, he now wishes he’d never been born and has decided to end his life. With the help of his guardian angel, he’s able to overcome his despair by seeing the impact he’s had on the people around him. Why during a time of hope, family, and celebration are people drawn to a story about a man who is ready to end it all? 

While rates of depression tend to increase during colder months, it’s a myth that suicide rates increase during the holiday season. If anything, suicide rates tend to decline as we approach Christmas but level out once we hit New Year’s Day. Even still, this is a hard time for many people. The thought of family gatherings is agonizing and the sight of brightness is annoying. Christmas becomes a season to “get through” instead of “enjoy.” It’s a reminder of the emptiness of the past year and the bleakness of the year to come. Joy is offensive and peace is unobtainable, and even the Christmas Story can’t lighten the mood. 

An Angel of the Lord told teenage Mary she had been chosen to carry, birth, and raise the savior of the world. With the help of her husband and surrounded by animals, Mary gave birth to a son. We don’t know how long she and Joseph were there before the shepherds and wise men arrived, but we do know childbirth is when a woman is at her weakest and most vulnerable. We know when women gave birth, men were usually in another room and the mother-to-be was surrounded by other women. Mary didn’t have that; Mary was alone. Yes, her husband was there, but what did a first-century BCE man from Nazareth know about childbirth? Other than encouragement and catching the infant, he wouldn’t have been much help. She labored and pushed with the little knowledge she had and hoped she and the baby survived, but lucky for her she had something bigger than hope. She had a promise. This child would be the one to defeat sin and usher in the Kingdom of God, and she knew he couldn’t do that as a stillborn.

This is what Christmas is like for so many: laboring and pushing at your weakest and most vulnerable, cruising on instinct while lacking the knowledge of how to get through it, and living on the little bit of hope that things will get better. But what’s the promise? George Bailey learned that his life carried meaning. Because of him, his brother was alive and the town was thriving. Shepherds who sat alone for hours and days with sheep, who often went unseen and unnoticed, were the first to lay eyes on the newborn. Not the wise men nor the citizens of Bethlehem who slept while the world changed, but it was lonely shepherds, and not by happenstance. They didn’t stumble upon the baby while they were on their lunch break, and they didn’t hear him crying from a distance. They were called, specifically chosen to make that trip. While it was miraculous and wonderful for them to lays their eyes on the physical manifestation of the promise of God, a story they’d heard their entire lives, they went back to their spot in the hills knowing they were seen, knowing they mattered to God. Why? Because a teenage girl said yes. A child herself, she said yes to the gossip and ridicule, yes to the almost divorce from her husband, yes to a lonely labor, and yes to a traumatic delivery. Her pain became their reason. We’re drawn to George Bailey because we are reminded that our pain can change the world, that everything that happened didn’t happen in vain, and that our small existence is so vital to God’s plan that our early departure could cause a ripple that echoes through generations. Lots of people delight in the hope of Christmas, but some, the Grinches and Scrooges who do their best to avoid the bright lights and large gatherings, try their hardest to rest in the promise.