The Mystery of Christmas

This is going to be a short post because a) I've just got in from the pub and I'm a bit pissed and b) its Christmas, but I want to say a few words about the season. About Christmas in fact and a tiny bit of what it means to me.

There is something about Christmas, or Yule or what you will, the mid-winter festival and feast that I think is important. Its easy, all too easy, in the grand orgy of crap that goes with how we mark Christmas in this age to lose sight of something slightly more profound about this time of year. In amongst the horrific orgy of consumer crap and constant rotation of perfume adverts and the general feeling of consume or die that stressfully screams from every media outlet, there maybe something deeper that we can only catch a glimpse of. Something important.

To me, that thing is the mystery of Christmas. Now, I don't mean the church advertising that Christmas begins with Christ, because while that may be true in spelling bee sense it doesn't begin to cover the truth of the matter. To me, the deep, still and profound heart of this thing is the sense of eternity that Christmas gives.

Since there were people, and to be honest if what we read is true, since before there were people in the homo-sapiens sense of things, there has been this festival. Its important, amidst the snows and frosts and iron grip of the winter to believe in the coming spring. Its vital to see the evergreen, to sense rebirth in the depths of winter, to know that despite all we think is important, despite all we think simple humans can influence, the world turns and the seasons shift and life will come again. At Christmas we are linked, whether we like it or not, with every generation before all us and all yet to come. From Victorian ice fairs to Georgian feasts to medieval mystery plays to Roman saturnalia and pagan green men to what ever the future holds, this one day connects us. We, humanity, may wax and wane and rise to magnificent heights or be cast down, but while we endure in whatever shape, this day is the same for all of us. This is the mystery of Christmas to me. We are insignificant as individuals in the face of the turn of the seasons, but this festival is our work and while we exist we will celebrate it. So, god, whatever you conceive him to be, bless us every one.

Merry Christmas everybody.