Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life was not always the staple of Christmas television viewing it is now. Time was, even though rights to air the 1946 film had lapsed into the public domain, no one seemed to think it quite as inspiring as A Charlie Brown Christmas, say, of The Wizard of Oz. 

But that all changed in the last twenty years. At some point Zuzu’s petals and all that became synonymous with yuletide cheer, despite the attempted suicide and endless home renovation depicted in the story of George Bailey (I see a causal relationship between the two!). And like the much maligned fruit cake, Frank Capra’s fable of small town life is now ready for its backlash. 

Consider last week’s piece in the New York Times that mentions the home reno and blanket of compromise that hangs over George Bailey’s thwarted dreams — the poor guy just can’t leave Bedford Falls! The essay’s author, Wendell Jamieson, called it “a terrifying asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams.” Okay, Jamieson’s tongue is slightly in his cheek (anyone who mentions the Clash in this context can’t be all bad). But it speaks to the pernicious holiday impulse to always ask for More, to look every gift in its proverbial mouth and say, So this is all I’m worth to you?

I first saw It’s A Wonderful Life when I was in my twenties, and already well acquainted with life’s disappointments. I saw George Bailey’s ultimate acceptance of his fate, and final acknowledgment of all the lives he had touched, as profoundly existential, despite all the God and angel business. Like Camus’ Sisyphus, he learns to love pushing that stone up the hill, knowing it will roll back down again. It never actually crushes you. “Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth,” wrote Camus. Consider that as you contemplate the meaning of Christmas. 

I haven’t been able write for the last week in part because of a visitation of family and in-laws but also because the news from India was so appalling that I felt incapable of responding. Disasters are supposed to make us feel better during the holidays; it’s one more thing to feel grateful for, that our homes were not burned or blown away, that we didn’t watch our loved ones swept away in a tsunami. But there was something about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai that felt strangely personal, as if none of us had escaped. 

I have no relationship to India. Outside of books and movies I have never laid eyes on its cities. I’ve come to know a lot more Indians since moving to New York but I think that has a lot more to do with the influx of immigrants from that country than the circles I move in. But as the reports dribbled in — via Twitter and cell phone, it turned out — from folks who got away I felt like I was in a horror movie with them. The one where people come to your door with guns and shoot you (if you’re the wrong nationality, race, religion or, in some cases, occupation) or not. It’s a sort of universal Columbine of the mind, except the Nazi nerds in this case happen to be Kashmir separatists. Muslims to you. 

I won’t pretend to understand the complications of that disputed region; everything I know I read in the newspapers, or watch on television, or hear on the radio. And I certainly don’t have a dog, or a cow, in that fight. But I do appreciate terror and the unfortunate observation that, while all Muslims are certainly not terrorists, nearly every terrorist is a Muslim. 

But consider the movie Slumdog Millionaire, which I went to see on the big Thanksgiving movie weekend with my wife and sister-in-law. That kinetic fantasy — Oliver Twist via the Usual Suspects, with a sprinkling of Bollywood at the end — includes scenes of Hindu mobs rioting and killing Muslims. Okay, you might argue that rioting mobs are different than cold-blooded, calculating terrorists (in one of the images left from last week’s massacre a young shooter seems to be smiling) but the cycle is the same. More blood for blood. More lambs for slaughter. With the beast and the man exchanging roles, becoming finally indistinguishable.