Back to the Light

 So, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, eh?

I’ve never liked the festive season. It’s too commercial and too forced. The adverts start much too early, and they’re all pressure sells - “buy this for Dad to make him happy.” Then it’s as though you have to smile, all the time. Not allowed to be down, not allowed to have a blue day. Stores play the same trite songs on a loop and we all have to wear jumpers that show we’re just such fun guys. It rings fake to me.

But now I have kids, things have changed (Like that’s a surprise). Christmas is for children, isn’t it? Bella’s of an age where she still prefers wrapping paper to presents, and plays for hours with the boxes, but still, she likes tearing the wrap off things. And she does like new toys, at least after she’s destroyed the boxes and strewn the house with cardboard. Besides, this will be Evie’s first Christmas. It doesn’t matter if I’m a grumpy old curmudgeon. It stopped being about me when the kids were born.

Christmas grew out of the pagan midwinter festival. I wonder if people then felt the same about that?

In some ways, patently not. The old festival was about emerging from the winter. The shortest day meant the year had turned, and now began to move towards spring and the rebirth of life. It was something to celebrate, but something dark too. The gods of rebirth used to die at midwinter, their blood on the snow, because they had to before being reborn in spring when the shoots start to grow. Darkness and light, a mixed message. Hope and despair.

 But faced with that, people focus on the hope. We always look for the light of a candle in the night. I can imagine those old festivals being full of life and joy, laughing in the face of the dark. What else were they for? We know the darkness is there, but we don't have to dwell on it. Better to raise a glass and smile.

 My wife wants us all to have onesies. I've always refused to wear the dreadful things. No force on Earth will get me into one of those things... except there are the kids. Caz says she can get minions onesies for her and the girls, and a Gru one for me. And take photos.

 The things we do for our kids.