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New York Diary

Tina Brown

Wednesday, 12th December 2007

Tina Brown on why New York Christmases are bigger and bolder than celebrations elsewhere and why Barack Obama is the political toast of the holiday season.

If you’re looking for the old-style Yuletide celebration on this side of the ocean, the best place to find it is at my daughter’s (co-ed) boarding school, St George’s, in Rhode Island. This idyllic educational establishment perched on a cliff over the bracing New England sea has plenty of what I love about America — its energy, its human variety, its sense of possibility — while still having the traditional flavour of the place (and state of mind) I’ve never quite stopped thinking of as home. We chose the school in a hurry in 2005 when Izzy, then 15, suddenly tired of Gossip Girl life at her all-girl day school in Manhattan. It’s turned out to be one of our better family decisions. Services in that soaring Gothic-style chapel on parents’ weekend are such rousing, full-blooded celebrations of 19th-century American can-do-ism that they make me want to rush off and — I don’t know — start a steamboat line, or become a missionary, or drive a herd of longhorns on the Chisholm Trail. Izzy’s ‘Silent Night’ solo at the carol service was only one highlight in a last week of term filled with nativity pageants, Christmas feasts and percussive celebrations of charitable giving.

Speaking of which, Brits need to be reminded that Americans, whatever their lousy image abroad, remain an immensely generous bunch. It never fails to amaze me how swift they are to respond if they sense the need is real or heartfelt. A publisher friend of mine, Bruce Harris, went off to Tanzania two years ago and was saddened to see that the Chalula primary school in the village of Mvumi had no books. He offered to send a consignment but was told there would be nowhere to put them. So when he came home, he did a quick whip round, raised $40,000, and helped build the school a library. I ran into him last week, just after the opening ceremony. He mentioned it casually, as if this imaginative act of private activism and global big-heartedness were no big deal at all. So dig deep this season, everybody, and Happy Hullidays.

Donations for laptops and more books to the Chalula Project at http://favl.org/

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Holiday-hating New Yorker

December 13th, 2007 2:59pm

Obama is much more than just a black politician, and for that reason reasonable voters are more likely to vote for him than that shrill, unimaginative, soulless creature who thinks it is her due to be president.

James

December 14th, 2007 6:29pm

Tina Brown is wrong as usual. If Iraq blows up again people are going to be inclined to vote for those who will get us out quickly. And that ain't Hillary.

john fazio

December 19th, 2007 9:06pm

tina, not so sure about the barack to bambi reference. the question, the cackle and obama's inspired quip turned things around in a few moments.

Verity

December 25th, 2007 12:48am

Why does Obama describe himself as black instead of white (silly question!), as his father was black and his mother was white? Obama, with his whole two years' experience as a freshman senator is ridiculous. And very scary. Two years as a junior senator and he thinks he is qualified to be the most powerful person in the world? Would you tell a trainee manager in a public company to go ahead and be chairman of the company because he just felt so very sincerely that he really, really could do it? I think the shareholders would put a stop to that arrogance quite fast. I hope the shareholders in America have their heads screwed on. I despise Obama. Even for a politician, he is an outstanding phony.

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