Believe

It was a Ted Lasso Christmas at the Van Meter household.

As with most pop culture phenomena, we were late to the party. For the past two years, Ted Lasso has been among the most lauded comedies streaming anywhere, and no wonder why. It’s hilarious, for one thing, and hopeful for another. And let’s face it, both laughter and hope have been in short supply in recent years.

The problem for us is that we have only a three-month trial subscription to Apple TV+, not to mention a college freshmen who is about to head off to Spain for in two weeks. So the pressure was on for us to get through Seasons 1 and 2 before the calendar became our enemy.

Challenge accepted.

The thing about binge-watching a show is that you can trace the story arc in real time, like tracking a fly ball. You admire the heights to which actors and writers and production teams can soar, but you also notice if something doesn’t land quite right. And if you get invested in the characters, you see them change—whether for good or ill—very quickly.

For Ted and his friends, the character arcs are mostly positive. Sure, they deal with relationship squabbles and divorces and a whole host of life lessons. But what begins as a collection of bruised and embittered individuals comes together as an essential set of friends. They lead with understanding. They are quick to forgive. They cheer for one another. They care.

All of which makes the slate of Ted Lasso characters easy to root for. And all of which makes me hate them just a little.

“Hate” is a strong word—too strong, in fact. But I must confess there’s a part of me that rages at the idea that so many lost and broken people could drop their defenses, set aside their grudges, and go about their business in a way that is not only loving, but also a tremendous amount of fun.

I hate to burst your bubble, but people aren’t really like that. Petty people default toward pettiness. Insecure people shut down or get aggressive. We don’t understand each other very well, and most days we would much rather punish than forgive.

We hope for one kind of world, but we live in a very different one.

I’ve seen plenty of that in my two-and-a-half decades of adulthood. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes church. Sometimes the workplace. The spaces we inhabit rarely live up to our expectations. Often they are marked by needless conflict and tribalism.

So hey, Ted—love ya, buddy. But you aren’t real. Your story isn’t real. That context isn’t real. As fervently as I wish it he were so, Roy Kent isn’t real. So why should I keep watching?

Because I need to believe it’s real—or at least that it might be.

The whole point of fiction is that it isn’t reality. We need make-believe worlds, sometimes to draw attention to problems in our own and sometimes to offer solutions we might not otherwise have come to. The Cormac McCarthy novel I’m reading is in the former category. Ted Lasso is in the latter.

So is Christmas.

I don’t believe that Christmas is a fiction, although we’ve certainly done plenty to embellish the stories around it. Neither am I ready to buy into the sanitized, uncomplicated myth of—and apologies to you fans out there—Hallmark movies.

But I do believe that Christmas—not just the biblical story, but the whole peace-on-earth, goodwill-to-all message that comes with the season for those of all or no religious persuasion—is an essential story. We spend all year in the trenches, enduring what reality has been. Christmas reminds us what it might be.

I got up early on Christmas morning this year, enough so that I had to wait two yours for the sun to rise. But rise it did The days are getting longer. Before long, we’ll notice the difference.

Maybe it’s easier to laugh and to believe when you know light wins in the end. Or maybe it’s easier to believe light wins when you can find a way to laugh.

Merry Christmas. Peace to you and yours. I’ll see you in 2023.