Review
Title: “Born This Happy Morning”
Author: John Bytheway
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: Christmas, Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2020
Number of Pages: 128
Binding: Paper
ISBN: 978-1629728056
Price: 10.99
Reviewed by Dan Call for the Association for Mormon Letters
I don’t do Christmas the right way, or at least that’s the impression I get year after year. It doesn’t just come to me when I hear first notes of Andy Williams ditties blaring over the radio or the sudden appearance of multicolored lights in my neighborhood. I have to concentrate and make exhausting efforts some years. My challenge most likely owes to a combination of the shock of getting dumped on Christmas day during my mission, the sea of cultural relativism through which I swam during my undergraduate program, and the emotional drain of once working the 24th and 25th at a detention facility for teenage boys. Whatever it is, though, it doesn’t stop me from recalling the wonder of this season from my youth, and there are enough moments of sudden holiday joy during my adulthood to convince me that there may be hope for me yet. So, when I saw that John Bytheway had published a new book, promising a deep dive into the search for the Spirit of Christmas, I was both intrigued and hopeful.
John Bytheway came onto my radar in the early ’90s when someone loaned me a totally authorized cassette recording of his “What’s in Your Backpack?” talk. As a high schooler in suburban Utah and a lifelong member of the church, I’d grown up on a steady diet of high council talks, General Conference discourses, and Mormon folklore circulated on faded photocopies of dubious origin. My first couple of years in seminary did much to help me see that gospel study didn’t have to be a serious, dreary affair, but I still wasn’t ready for what that tape did to me. When it came to effectively presenting a message to my generation, Bytheway seemed to have it all: quirky storytelling, masterful pacing, an arsenal of pulpit sound effects, and a riveting ability to abruptly shift tone from the hilarious to the sacred. Before returning the tape to my friend, I played it enough that even today I can still recite some parts of it, complete with voice inflections and all.
Bytheway’s wide-eyed fandom of all things Christmas comes across on each page, as eager to take simple pleasure in Santa as he is to wrestle with the weightier implications of what it means for a Messiah to shoulder the grief of the entire human family. Throughout each of the eight chapters in “Born This Happy Morning”, readers are treated to an easy to digest combination of scriptures, literature, pop-culture references, and mostly recent addresses by church leaders, all directed at shedding light on Christmas. Readers versed in these traditions won’t have too hard of a time predicting which characters and stories will be included. What pleasantly surprises, however, are the original and effortless groupings of each of these, and the principles he lovingly teases out from them. George Bailey’s depressing streak of losses, for instance, gets deftly connected to the bring-on-the-adversity chorus of “Come, Come Ye Saints,” which in turn finds its way into a scriptural exposition on the loneliness Christ willingly endured. In another chapter, the virtues of just one aspect of Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation are distilled into a sublime reflection on my favorite under-appreciated character from the biblical Christmas story. The recurring theme of three levels of experiencing this season gives me hope that future editions of this text might make room for Charlie Brown or even Ralphie and his Red-Ryder BB gun.
In addition to the author’s solid job of amassing this treasure trove of stories and teachings, his endearing personal anecdotes cement the disparate parts of the book together, persuading me of his sincerity. He digs deep into his own past and his family stories, going back to days of wide-eyed wonder that couldn’t anticipate the sorrows the future held for him and his siblings. He shares a soft answer to a prayer during a perilous trek through a snowstorm, finding a relatable metaphor. The story of a carefully produced gift from the early days of his marriage blends nicely into a meditation on which sorts of gifts tend to matter most. I was left with the impression that Bytheway, for as much as he likes the big idea of Christmas, has spent much of his life refining and trying to understand the little pieces that end up making the feeling associated with Christmas so desirable.
My hopes for reading this book were mostly fulfilled. As it induced me to reflect on my own relationship to each of the ideas it explores, I began to wonder what other recent readings, cultural intakes, and life events of my own might inform the way I practice Christmas. I was surprised to make an unlikely connection with a recent thriller novel I read, which in turn pushed me to reflect on what I might do to properly mourn the traumas described at the opening of this review. Maybe adding Christmas into these unsuspecting corners of my life will help me begin to heal these old scars that I have ignored for too long. When Bytheway asserts that what really compels us to anticipate Christmas is the longing for a feeling, I can get fully on board with him, and I am grateful that, having read this little volume, I found a new hope that there are more angles to understand and approach Christmas than I had previously considered.