THE 
American-Scandinavian 
Review 
Volume X December, 1922 Number 12 
Christmas, the Festival of Hope 
By Harald Ostenfeld 
The literature relating to what may with a general term be called 
the Utopias forms a very interesting study. The nations of antiquity 
embodied their highest aspirations in their hopes and dreams of a 
Golden Age. In the Hebrew prophets, who in a dark and troubled 
age saw visions of the wolf grazing side by side with the lamb, we 
meet the same longings in a sacred form. Plato wrote The State; 
Thomas More, Utopia ; and down to our own times we find attempts 
to visualize the future in the light of hope, sometimes with lofty imag¬ 
ination, sometimes more realistically as an ultimate victory through 
struggle. Whatever form it may take, no people can continue to live 
without a hope shining through the dark hours. 
Christmas is in a sense a festival of hope; it means that he who 
takes part in the celebration is, consciously or unconsciously, steering 
toward a goal. The world in which we live, whether our home is in 
America or in Denmark, bears the stamp of an egoism which finds 
more or less brutal expression. Is it not wonderful, then, that all of a 
sudden there comes a day when this mad pursuit of selfish interest is 
halted, and when by common consent, not only a few idealists and 
dreamers, but the whole nation engages in the effort to please others, 
to assuage grief, and to relieve want. Some might say that this is in¬ 
consistent, a mere childish inconsistency which lasts but a fleeting 
moment. And yet this effort to give others pleasure, to spread com¬ 
fort and promote cheer, and to alleviate bitter want, is in itself an 
indication that the people still cherish their dream of Paradise and their 
hope of the future, a hope which they do not dare to throw overboard, 
and which they know is not to be attained by force but by love alone. 
It is perhaps possible to show folk-loristic parallels to our Christ¬ 
mas and to the Yuletide customs we have inherited from our fore¬ 
fathers, but there is no getting away from the fact that our Christmas, 
