Wing & a Prayer Productions

There are many things I love about the run into December: mince pies, mulled wine, cold weather (a result of a childhood lived in semi-desert conditions) especially if it involves hoarfrost or snow, sledging, buying presents (especially stocking fillers), making suet puddings, seeing bright holly berries in hedges and a good many things besides.

What I object to is when these things are described ‘Christmas’. These are all good things, beautiful and fun, they may be an accompaniment to Christmas, but they are not ‘Christ’s Mass’. And I am increasingly frustrated and bewildered by the assumption that they are.

This frustration reached its zenith last month, a few weeks before December 25th. Our Church is split into several smaller ‘home groups’ which meet during the week for support, encouragement prayer and study. Our home group decided to send a small package to a young man we know (who attended our group for a brief spell) who has spent a large period of his life fighting drug and alcohol addiction and who seemed likely to be spending Christmas Day back in prison (in the event he was released before Christmas). We collected different things to go into the parcel but it fell to me to get a card for us all to sign.

Foolishly in hindsight, I decided to go to our local supermarket to find a card. After considerable thought, I ended up walking out without one. It wasn’t that there weren’t any cards but that they were so inappropriate. They bore slogans along the lines of: ‘May the magic of Christmas fill you with a warm glow’ (What on earth is that supposed to mean? What precisely do you mean by Christmas ‘magic’? No, seriously, tell me, because if anyone could do with a bit of magic it’s an ex-con battling a heroin addiction) or ‘May you get everything you want this Christmas’ (Because Christmas is all about my wants?). There were others which seemed to suggest that alcohol was a key part of the Christmas experience (not so good for someone with an alcohol problem).

The overriding message seemed to be that Christmas is about some sort of sentimental experience at best or, failing that, at least an excuse to get some presents and get tipsy. Okay, my senses were heightened because the person I was searching for a card for is not in a great way but, really, I’d be ashamed to send such drivel to anyone.

The one thing Christmas should not be is sentimental. While I know not everyone will have warmed to Tony Jordan’s recent portrayal of the Nativity story, broadcast last month by the BBC (it is just one interpretation at the end of the day), the one thing I felt it brought home very strongly was the messiness of the first Christmas: of a human God born to desperate people on a shitty stable floor. That’s the God I believe in, a God who gets involved in our muck and doesn’t shrink from it.

Father Christmas, Santa Claus, whatever you want to call him; I hate to say this kids, but whether you’ve been good or bad doesn’t come into it: what it boils down to is whether or not your parents have got the cash (funnily enough he doesn’t come to many in the so called Developing World).

Jesus comes to all. Especially if you’ve been ‘bad’.