A weekend away in a time machine

It was time for a break. Our family had been afflicted by various illnesses, crises and illness-crises (a dramatic combination of the above). Half term had therefore been a washout. Somewhere inside I'm still expecting the September we never had. 

Some loyalty card points bought us a weekend in a hotel in Birmingham. I was looking forward to the Pre-Raphaelite collection at the big municipal art gallery. However, we arrived to find the gallery shut for refurbishment.

Instead, we visited a Christmas craft market, the Christmas light switch on in the Jewellery Quarter and a massive German-style Christmas market. All when we were still twelve days even from the start of December. 

There was a lovely atmosphere of chatting to friendly strangers. The live music and gluhwein helped! It felt like being at the jostling crowded heart of the festive season.

But returning home, it was odd to discover we are still a long way off Christmas. It is as if we had  travelled not just many miles, but many days. Here I am, back home and back in time again, looking forward to the eventual start of Advent and the run-up to Christmas. 

Advent - a blessing

 

In the past, Advent was a time of fasting and contemplation, allowing people to prepare themselves spiritually for the Christmas celebration to follow, rather as Lent is a time to prepare for Easter.

Now, lights and baubles surround us even before Advent starts and many Christmas parties are over by the second week in December. 

In CS Lewis' much loved children's book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Narnia was under a curse whereby it was always winter and never Christmas.

Nowadays we seem to be under a spell where it is always Christmas and never Advent.

No wonder that when Christmas Day arrives, we are often frazzled - instead of a sense of wonder, I have a sense of disappointment - somehow I have cheated myself of the 'true meaning of Christmas'.

This year, I'm going to try to take the bustle and preparations with a pinch of salt.  Whatever I manage to do, it will have to be good enough.  And actually, because my friends and family are kind and forgiving people, it WILL be good enough.

So in 2022, I am making a pre-New Year's resolution to find some space and stillness in Advent.

Photo shows Nigel & our friend Carolyn with a giant robin at Gibside.

Advent – awe and wonder

This is the season of “spend! spend! spend!”, of ear-worm Christmas songs, of glitter and parties.  How can it also be Advent, a time of spiritual preparation, of meditation and fasting?

Personally, I have always suspected the early Christian fathers (NB Fathers, not Mothers) of making a planning error.

In midwinter we desperately need a festival of family and feasting.  In the short, dark days, we crave sparkle.

But the Christian forefathers scheduled our celebration of the birth of Christ in the same time slot as the ancient Roman mid-winter knees-up of Saturnalia, inheriting a tradition of excess.

Perhaps the holy day to contemplate the incarnation of the living God would have been better on a separate occasion.  After all, the few indications we have are that the birth of Christ did not take place in mid-winter – the shepherds would not have been out in the fields with their flocks then.

Each year I strive to provide ideal gifts and a delicious Christmas meal and to reassert our network of kinship and friendship by sending cards.  Each year it knocks my spiritual life sideways, just when it should be peaking.

However, this is the year when I had foot surgery and could not get out and about as I longed to.  So instead, I prepared a little Christmas gift for myself.  In the summer, secretively so as not to seem deranged, I began to make cards and accumulate gifts.

And now, just for once, I can see the stillness of Advent gleaming in the midst of the Christmas glitter storm.

Just Stop

A few years ago when I trained as a teacher, I had a placement in rural North Hertfordshire.  Showing me round,  the pupils focused on the most important thing of all – the procedure for snow days.  

It was only September, but they already had an eye on a day off.  And I quite liked the prospect too.

From that day to this, however, there has been no snow day in Hertfordshire.  Until today.

Even today there is not really a snow day off school as it is Sunday. 

However, there is the same delightful feeling that whatever we were going to do today, it will not be done. 

And it is not our fault.

It’s a very busy time of year, preparing cards, gifts, food and social life for Christmas.  But today it’s as if God just shook his finger at us and said “Shush now – doesn’t really matter.  Settle down.”

We put on our boots and did the things that counted - got to church, called on an elderly neighbour, filled the bird feeders.

But then everything slowed down – home made bread, the wood-burner lit, an old film on the telly.

And a nourishing day’s rest in Advent.