10 Love Lessons From Christmas in ‘The Twilight Zone’
What Rod Serling’s classic show can still teach us
To say that I’m a fan of The Twilight Zone* would be a gross understatement of exactly how much I have loved this show for decades now. Although it first began airing over sixty years ago, there are many timeless lessons about the human condition that still hold true to this day — not the least of which are the lessons that we can learn about love. Some of those lessons can be found in two of the Christmas-themed episodes penned by Rod Serling and the following are ten of them.
The Episode: “Night of the Meek”
The Plot: Henry Corwin is a down-and-out department store Santa Claus who gets fired from his job for showing up late and drunk. After wandering around the snowy streets, he finds a bag of garbage that holds the magic to make him a real-life Santa.
The Lessons:
Love makes you want to take someone’s pain away. After a trip to his local watering hole before going to work, Corwin encounters two neighborhood children who ask him for various gifts — from a carriage to a doll to a set of soldiers to a playhouse — and as they continue making their requests, the desperation of their situation becomes more clear. As the little girl pleads, “Please, Santa Claus, a job for my daddy” and the little boy follows up with “Please, a big turkey for our Christmas dinner,” Corwin is overcome with emotion. He hugs them and begins to cry, absorbing their pain as if it were his own because he loves children and identifies with what they’re going through.
“We’ll pour out some hot coffee, and we’ll pour some brandy in it, and we’ll thank God for miracles.”
Love makes you want to speak your truth. After his interaction with the children, Corwin finally gets to work and when he’s speaking to the son of a customer, he stumbles onto the floor. The customer grabs her son and tells the manager, Mr. Dundee, that she’ll never shop there again. Since the store will be closing in a few hours anyway, Dundee fires Corwin and calls him a drunk. Corwin admits to being drunk, but because he loves Christmas so much, he tells Dundee his truth about what the holiday should be:
As to my insubordination, I was not rude to that woman. Someone should remind her that Christmas is more than barging up and down department store aisles and pushing people out of the way. Someone has to tell her that Christmas is another thing finer than that. Richer, finer, truer, and it should come with patience and love, charity, compassion. That’s what I would have told her if you’d given me a chance.
Love makes you want to be a giver. After leaving the department store, Corwin finds a bag full of tin cans on the street that inexplicably transforms into a bag full of gifts that he happily gives to his suffering neighbors, from the children he encounters on the street to his friends celebrating Christmas service at the church. He loves what he’s doing so much that he even gives Dundee a bottle of cherry brandy after his former boss accuses him of stealing all of the gifts.
Love makes you want to change your life. After spending the night giving everyone their heart’s desire, Corwin loves the experience so much that when his friend asks what he wants for himself, he says all he wants is the opportunity to do it again every year. Soon after, he sees a sleigh and reindeer parked on the street, with an elf who tells him, “We’ve been waiting quite a while for you, Santa Claus!” Without reservation, he gets on the sleigh and drives it away because he loves the idea of dedicating his life to gift giving.
“Someone has to tell her that Christmas is another thing finer than that.”
Love makes you want to believe in miracles. After Corwin proves that he didn’t steal anything from the department store, Dundee spends the night at the police station drinking the gift he received with Officer Flaherty. The two stumble out of the building and see Corwin up in the sky on the way to begin his new chapter as Santa Claus. Although both men are in disbelief, Dundee loves the idea that Corwin is getting a second chance, so much that he tells Flaherty, “You’d better come home with me, and we’ll pour out some hot coffee, and we’ll pour some brandy in it, and we’ll thank God for miracles.”
The Episode: “The Changing of the Guard”
The Plot: Professor Ellis Fowler, who has been an English literature teacher at Rock Spring School for Boys for over 50 years, is told that the school has decided it’s time for him to retire so a younger teacher can replace him after the Christmas break. This news devastates him, and he begins to spiral into a depression that makes him question whether or not his life has been a failure. However, he gets a supernatural message from former students that yes, he did indeed make a difference in people’s lives, which leaves him feeling better and looking forward to his retirement.
The Lessons:
Love makes you want to leave things on a positive note. Fowler is in his last class before the Christmas break and his students are barely prepared, or interested, to talk about the poetry he’s trying to teach them. But still, he loves teaching and he loves his students, so he lets them know some good news as he lets them go: They have all passed the class. Some of the students seem surprised and although Fowler agrees, he still wants to end things on a good tone by saying:
My delight is only exceeded by my sense of shock. It is rare, young men, that in 51 years of teaching, I have ever encountered such a class of dunderheads. But nice dunderheads, and potentially fine young men who will make their marks and leave their marks.
Love makes you want to soften the blow of bad news. After class, Fowler is called into a meeting with the school’s headmaster, who asks him if he has had the opportunity to read the letter sent to him from the trustees. He hasn’t, but he tells the headmaster that he plans to sign his contract and will happily be on board for the next year. The headmaster is forced to let him know that his contract is actually being terminated, but he loves Fowler and his years of service, so he tells him something to temper the message: “If you could have been at that meeting, Sir, you would have been very proud of the things said about you and your work. A teacher of incalculable value to all of us….”
Love makes you want to cherish the little things. Feeling dejected after hearing he’s being forced into retirement, Fowler goes home to reminisce about his career and the students he has loved for years. He remembers even the smallest details about them: “Timothy Arnold…had an incorrigible habit of chewing bubble gum and then popping it,” “William Hood…smallest boy ever to play varsity football here,” and “Artie Beechcroft…freckle-faced little fellow. He had a most infectious grin,” Fowler recalls.
“I do believe I may have left my mark, a few gauntlets of knowledge that I’ve thrown down that may have been picked up….”
Love makes you want to save someone. Fowler spends the evening reflecting on his life and career — and asking himself if he’s anything more than a failure. After all, the things he taught his students were only impactful to him and his students didn’t care about any of it at all. Fowler descends into a deep depression and goes back to the school with a gun and the intention to use it on himself. But before he gets the chance, class bells start ringing, causing him to stop what he’s doing to investigate. Since Fowler is part of the fabric and soul of the school, the school loves him and would not allow him to do anything to hurt himself — so it used the loud distraction to save him.
Love makes you want to leave your mark. Fowler stumbles into his empty classroom, looking disoriented. He sits down and suddenly the room is full of his former students, who have all made a special trip from beyond the grave to tell Fowler how important he was to them. They tell him of all the lessons and values he left with them — courage, loyalty, ethics, honesty — and how they all went on to do great things in part because of the knowledge they gained from him. Fowler goes home feeling a sense of pride that he actually did make a lasting difference in the profession he loves. He tells his housekeeper:
I do believe I may have left my mark, a few gauntlets of knowledge that I’ve thrown down that may have been picked up….I didn’t win the victories, Mrs. Landers, but I helped others to win them, so, perhaps, in some small measure, they are victories I can share.
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