"I don't bother with Christmas these days - it's just for the children, after all, isn't it?" - how often have you heard that? Countless times, I'll warrant. And is it true? (I'll come back to that question later.) What do people mean when they ask it, though? I suggest that they're really saying that all the razzamataz of the 'High Street Christmas" is what they are rejecting: the special food, that only comes out once a year, like dates, nuts, crystalized fruits, the little bacon/sausage bundles and plum pudding; and the toys that seem to grow more intricate and more expensive with each year that passes, and with an equal and opposite progression in their reliability, too. And they stop giving Christmas cards, too, because it costs far more now to post them - even second class - than the cost of the card.
So, "I don't bother with Christmas these days." And what about that other claim, "it's just for the children, isn't it?" Well, yes, certainly some aspects, the toys, and some of the carols too, are aimed at children. I for one can't precisely remember when I last unpacked a Christmas present and discovered a toy. And as one's own children grow up, one's interest in child-focussed celebrations wanes. Then along come the grandchildren, whose lifestyle is far from one's own. Now, you might think that they bring with them a replenishment of the 'children' aspect of Christmas, but by the time we are grandparents, time has moved on, and what we enjoyed with our own children is no longer fashionable, or even, perhaps, available. To a certain extent the grandchildren, dear souls though they are, are a distinct intrusion into the quieter lifestyle that has become our own.
Christmas, then, is better without the children, for whom we once thought it was intended. What are we to do with it? Can we ignore it, totally? No, of course not. For one thing the culture of the whole nation is geared not only to having Christmas and Boxing Days off work, but also as much of the ensuing fortnight as the chiefs of industry and commerce will allow. We're not at work, but we're not bothering with Christmas, so shall we go off somewhere for a holiday? Anywhere close and affordable (if there is anywhere like that in a recession) isn't exactly having holiday weather, so unless we spend an absolute fortune (that we haven't got) that's not on the cards either.
One more thing that we can't do is to roll back the years, to the great times we had in our own childhood - to the times when Christmas really was for the children - or so we thought. Someone asked me the other day to think back to one of the greatest parties I could remember; after just a little thought, my mind went back to when I was about five, to a Christmas spent around my grandparents' table, in a cottage festooned with paper streamers, and great paper bells hanging from the beams. The company consisted of my parents and me, my grandparents, and their only other surviving child, along with her husband and daughter: a nice even gathering of eight, who played games in twos or fours, opened presents seemingly without number, and ate the food that the three family units had undoubtedly clubbed together to provide. The men smoked their pipes without restriction, and the ladies sipped the port or sherry that was reserved for this occasion, and we children were blissfully unaware whether or not we got under everybody's feet, or were a nuisance, because in the spirit of the day we wouldn't have been told off, even if we had been.
Was this what Christmas was all about? If so, then there's little wonder that we 'don't bother with Christmas these days.' Times have changed, but our idea of Christmas hasn't. It's stuck in the past.
What of the 'real' Christmas, though? I listened tonight to some carols. Most of them were old favourites, many dating from the Victorian era, but not all by far. As the familiar words of each one told its particular aspect of the tale - the couple looking for somewhere to stay because the town was crowded on account of the census; the angels appearing with their good news for the shepherds; the great trek performed by the wise men with their precious gifts; and the great significance of this baby born in the humble surroundings of a stable - the words echoed in my mind and heart, not taking me back to my childhood, or to later times when I might have sung them in a choir, but back centuries beyond any personal recollection to the one time in the history of the world when God Himself appeared on earth in human form, with the express purpose of rescuing mankind from the mess that he had made of his world ... and continues so to do.
In the third line of this article I asked 'and is it true?' and said I'd come back to that question. As it appeared, it referred to the matter of Christmas being for the children, but that wasn't exactly what I meant, hence coming back to it now. When I hear that question, 'and is it true?' I'm reminded of a poem I first heard about thirty years ago (although it is at least twice as old) by John Betjeman:
"And is it true? and is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine."
These are the last three, and to my mind the most poignant, of eight. If you have time this Christmas day, read all eight here. Like my response to 'your greatest party', they take one's mind back to the familiar Christmasses of yesteryear, but also explain, as I've tried to indicate here, that there is a greater significance to Christmas than anything we can buy, send, imagine, conjour up or cobble together. There is a 'real' meaning to it that will outlast anyone and everyone's memory - the eternal truth of Immanuel - God with us.
I wish a truly Blessed Christmas to all my readers.
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