And yes, on the first of the month, in keeping with our family tradition, I had my tree up. On my Facebook page that is, a stupendous virtual tree – my best one ever! And I can change it any time I want!
The fake green version has been given and accepted with alacrity to the Next Generation to take up their much more generous space, and to celebrate their first Christmas in their new home – nice! I will still get to enjoy it on the day when I make the journey south for time with my nearest and dearest, and leave it behind with no regrets when I come back to my desert home.
Just as a digression, perhaps it’s the desert home that adds to my enjoyment of snowscapes and Northern Hemisphere festive scenes despite being a native of a hot climate – I do love the cold weather!
So, to deeper matters. Despite, after years of nibbling round the edges of spirituality, even taking the plunge into full-fledged born-again Christianity accompanied by full immersion Baptism in a freezing winter river, and now a paid-up fully-confessed atheist: I still love Christmas! And yes, I can still leave the Christ in Christmas, after all Jesus was a real historical figure, and it seems like he was a well-meaning bloke, even if not the son of a non-existent transcendent god figure – let him have it his way, no skin off my nose.
I love Christmas because it comes at the end of the year; it’s another excuse to pull out the stops to just stop work and make every effort to spend time with the ones you love. If it’s Christmas and you have to work, or you’re alone and somehow cannot be with your family it’s regarded as a condition to be sympathised with, to be remedied if possible. People make a special effort to include the lonely, churches put on free Christmas lunches, families invite ‘orphans’, those without immediate family close by, even those in our community of other non-Christian religions can feel included, and enjoy the special sense of community and closeness that this time of year seems to bring out.
I love all of that, and because Christmas comes at the end of the year, for me, it’s a milestone, like birthdays, and I have very special passion for milestones. Birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries – all are an opportunity to pause and review the past, and then, to leave it behind. To hold on to the positive and leave behind the negative. To remind yourself that history is not necessarily destiny, and to realise that the equally wonderful thing about both mistakes and successes that they can be appraised and learned from: and then you have your future to use all that marvellous knowledge!
I also now contemplate the resolutions I made at the beginning of the year – if I can remember them! There was something about punctuality: I have had moderate success with this, still working on it. I am better at being organised though, now I both KEEP a diary and LOOK at it – seems obvious I know, but not for everyone! Spending more time with friends – yes, this is working too, and being organised has helped with this enormously, it’s too easy to put off being with company if not organised with work and other everyday matters, so this is all looking much better than last year! Corollary to this then is that work/life balance is better, and more work actually getting done too, but still more room for improvement!
So for this next year’s resolutions. I haven’t really decided on a final list yet – but I do have a couple of pre-Christmas resolutions to put in place, ones of the peacemaking type that I particularly associate with this time of year. I think of them as ‘burying the hatchet’, and ‘reaching out’ type resolutions.
The first will be to try for reconciliation with an estranged sibling. As time goes by I am conscious of our encroaching age, and as the youngest offspring in my litter, and on the verge of my 6th decade, there is no time to lose. Wish me luck!
The other will be to reach out to distant friends and family with whom contact has been desultory – perhaps one of those gruesome Christmas letters that people complain about – I don’t know why though, I love them!
These will be my end of year imperatives – time enough to set my sights on 2015!
I intend to enjoy this December, make it the best month yet of 2014, and I hope you all do too!