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December 31, 2023

On Christmas afternoon in the Tampa suburb of Largo, Florida, a 14-year-old teenager reportedly began arguing with his 15-year-old brother over the dollar value of presents the two had received. The argument spilled over to the front porch, where the boys’ 23-year-old sister, Abrielle Baldwin, sat with one of her children, a one-year-old child.

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After the older sister told the brothers to stop squabbling — “Why you trying to start it? It’s Christmas” — the 14-year-old reportedly replied that he would kill her and her baby. He then allegedly pulled a semi-automatic handgun from his clothing and shot his sister fatally in the chest.

The 15-year-old, seeing that his younger brother had shot his sister, then allegedly shot the 14-year-old, though not fatally. He is then said to have dropped the weapon he had used — also a semiautomatic pistol — and fled to a neighbor’s house, where he was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder. The 14-year-old boy has been charged with first-degree murder.

The teens’ sister left behind two daughters, one six and the other just one year old. Both brothers remain in jail at this time. Both teenage brothers, by the way, had criminal records involving car theft.

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Welcome to Christmas, 2023, in America.

What a contrast with the traditional idea of Christmas as a time of “peace on earth and good will towards men.” That vision of Christmas was celebrated in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir presentation that I watched just hours after reading the report of these shootings. Along with a very beautiful rendition of a dozen traditional Christmas carols and other songs, the Tabernacle program featured an extremely moving recitation by David Suchet (“Poirot”), who related the true story of Nicholas Winton, the British stockbroker who worked to save over 650 children from almost certain death at the hands of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia.

The “message” of Winton’s life, according to Suchet and Winton’s son and namesake Nicholas, who appeared on the program, was that all should practice some form of active charity, no matter how mundane. According to Suchet, there are today some 4,000 individuals — children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren — who owe their lives to the efforts of Nicholas Winton. When Suchet asked those in the enormous audience to shine their smartphone lights as a pledge that they would perform acts of charity in 2024, the great hall was ablaze with light.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir program, though recorded on Dec. 12, was broadcast on Christmas Day within 24 hours of the Largo, Florida, murders. It was reassuring to watch such an inspiring program as that from Salt Lake City — the product of many thousands of hours of preparation on the part of selfless and dedicated staff and guests, including the breath-taking performance of featured singer Lea Salonga. The annual Mormon Tabernacle presentation was among the best I have seen, and I’ve seen many of them. Programs like this one provide us with a reason for hope. There are hundreds of millions of decent, well-meaning persons just in our own country, and they are the reason that America will continue to prosper and remain a beacon of light to the world.

These Americans do not wish to “radically transform” America. They strive to maintain the religious, moral, and cultural traditions upon which our great nation was founded, and their behavior is guided by the moral codes that they have inherited from their Judeo-Christian ancestors. It is these traditions that ensure the safety, security, health, and well-being of all, and that provide each of us with a purpose and meaning in life, including, as Nicholas Winton demonstrated, the ability to contribute so much to the lives of so many. In his case, this was life itself.

But there are also millions of others — those who will beat another driver senseless in a road-rage incident, who will shoplift $900 of goods day after day, driving businesses to bankruptcy, and who will kill because they don’t like the looks of their victims or because their victims claimed to have received more expensive gifts for Christmas.