What does Christmas mean to you?
You’ve seasoned your chicken, cleaned your skirting boards, overdone it on the shopping, presents are wrapped and under the tree or piled on the table or in nooks and crannies but Christmas is much bigger than these elements that pull it all together.
In the simpler term, Christmas means being a safe place for all to gather. Yes, it’s present giving, and food eating, and drink drinking, and the likes but it is also the family argument, the weird uncle your parents insist on having around their dinner table when no one else would rather, but therein lies the true essence of the season, being charitable when we would really rather not. They see in the weird uncle or not so funny aunt what the season is all about; in the biblical a miracle and a sense of gratitude for said miracle because we know the stories of what’s to come and outside of that, a welcoming to all, a time to welcome in someone who most likely has no one else around to welcome them, and make them feel at home in your home, and so weird uncle gets a place and a plate when he is ready to leave.
Someone is bound to bring up something that irritates life out of you and you revisit the scene of an old argument that will never be put to rest. There will be card playing, there will pockets to rest one’s head because in front of the TV is where not so funny aunty will nod off whilst subjecting everyone to watching her supremely boring soap opera from the 80s because it stars that actor she has always had a crush on. There will be fun and games and children who are not so well behaved but in grandma’s home they are perfect angels. Christmas is all memory, singular moments and many ones. It is about the one who is constantly told to chop the vegetables for the salads, and will do so grudgingly, yours truly. The one who forgot to buy the salad cream or baked beans for breakfast and so we have to run out to get some from the bossman who will remain open throughout and so bossman too gets a plate. It is the six different types of eggs your mum will make for breakfast because someone is picky about what type of egg they want. It is the laughs in our homes, it is watching a good match on telly, or something the BBC has reran for decades. It is more shopping for more things we have no need of and it is rest at some point, rest and plans for New Years Eve.
Christmas over the years, is all about the memories for the years to come. I hope you make them, I hope you enjoy them, I hope you cherish them because life is not promised but these memories go beyond our time in it. Happy Christmas to you and yours. Always.