Well, here we are, two days away from Christmas day. I haven't written a post recently due to a death in our family. My normal pre Christmas preparations of all things foodie have taken a back seat, added to which, bizarrely, accessing this blog has been problematic. Every now and then, just as I think I'm very technologically advanced, a problem arises, my computer suddenly wants all sorts of information which I've neither the time or the patience for!
Of course Christmas for us this year won't be marked with joyful celebrations. We will spend a quiet, contemplative time thinking of those no longer with us.
When you get to my age the joyfulness and celebrations of Christmas often mask a more complicated reality. I have wonderfully happy memories of my childhood Christmases, all wrapped up in a thousand tiny traditions. The celebrations didn't begin until the last Saturday before Christmas when my father would decorate our huge real Christmas tree. The scents of Christmas hung heavy in the air with mum's baking aromas wafting through the house and the fresh scent of pine. Presents would be tumbled around the tree, not of the extravagant, excessive kind children expect today, I remember one of my favourite presents was a five year diary with a lock and key.
We would celebrate the 12 days of Christmas, it was a time for friends and family. Nowadays with Christmas starting in November, by the time Christmas day arrives everyone has had their fill, on Boxing day people are heaping their trees and excess food in the bin and heading off to the sales!
My parent's were celebratory people, each Christmas another neighbour would join our Christmas table, no one would be left eating a dinner alone in our street. And that's what Christmas was for me, it was a time of sharing, looking out for the less fortunate, it was a Christian festival, not an occasion to brawl in shops over TVs as we saw on Black Friday.
When my parents died it left a huge, gaping hole in my Christmas. Glenn's family had never done the big family thing, any foolish ideas I might of had regarding the women folk ie his mother, sister and myself, preparing Christmas lunch together sharing the odd glass of sherry while the men went to the pub for a swift half and the children played with their presents, were quickly thwarted. Consequently, I went from what was a huge celebration in terms of everyone squeezed around my parents table, the more the merrier, to lunch for three.
Christmas is for many people, a sad and lonely time. Statistics suggest that more people file for divorce after Christmas than any other time of the year, and we also see a spike in deaths, particularly suicide. It has become less about the lonely widow down the road and more about little Johnny having a smartphone. Mother's baking with their children has been replaced with ready prepared food, go into any large supermarket in the days immediately leading up to Christmas and it's like Armageddon. Unfortunately, Christmas has become a huge marketing exercise, where shops were once closed until virtually the January sales we now shop late into Christmas eve and are back out, elbowing our way through the crowds on Boxing day.
The cautionary Charles Dickens tale, A Christmas Carol, about a wealthy man who had nothing compared with the Cratchit's who, inspite of being dirt poor, celebrated Christmas with love and what meagre rations they could afford, has passed us by. Like Scrooge, we've become grasping and we're in need (as in 1843) of re examining Christmas traditions.
Last Thursday I drove to the small town of Emsworth and was greeted by a crowd of people singing carols. It was a dull and drizzly day, when I asked why they had come out on such a day they said that each year, on the last Thursday before Christmas, they gather to sing carols and collect money for Christian aid. These people rarely see each other all year round and are from all different denominations, they take it in good faith that they will all meet up this one day of the year in an act of kindness to those less fortunate.
Much as I love opening presents, eating too much and drinking champagne, I've come to realise, it is the people we love who make Christmas magical and that is why for many, Christmas is often a time when painful absences are felt most keenly. We want to conjure our lost ones back and cling on to happy memories of Christmases past.
This year we should all take a moment to realise that the true meaning of Christmas isn't found wrapped up under the tree - but in the loved ones we are lucky enough to have around us. Whilst we must keep those we have lost in our hearts, we must cherish those we still have in our lives.
I'd like to wish all of my readers a very merry Christmas, hopefully I'll have sorted my technological problems and be back with you in the new year.
Lots of love
Donna xxxxxxxx
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