(The Nationalist, 15 December 2000)
Do you remember this time last year? Everyone was getting excited about the new millennium. The thought of entering not just a new year, or even a new decade or new century but a new millennium had a certain magic to it. People felt special just to be alive. I knew one woman who was 103 years old, so she had lived in three centuries, the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first. There couldn’t be many people who could make the same claim.
There were forecasts of wild revelry, and people spoke of £1000 being offered to babysitters for the night of 31 December – 1 January. In the end, it was a quiet affair and people mostly stayed at home and had a relaxed, easy-going celebration.
What kind of Christmas would you like to have if you could have your wishes fulfilled? I imagine that a lot of families would opt for a quiet one that would leave them refreshed rather than exhausted, at peace with one another instead of irritated, frustrated or angry, sober rather than drunk, and with something, however small, left in the kitty rather than being broke or even in debt.
Who does most of the work for Christmas? Who does the shopping, writes the cards, buys the presents, puts up the decorations, prepares a crib, cooks the food and creates a festive family atmosphere? Who undertakes the role of peace-maker when tensions begins to boil as people, confined indoors by the weather, start to get on each other’s nerves and tempers fray? My guess is that it’s the mother who does most, maybe all, of it. And she probably works at an ordinary job as well. That can’t leave her with very much time or energy to enjoy the occasion herself. What about sharing the burden and giving her a helping hand?
Now is the time to start thinking about it. What about the children preparing a crib or putting up the decorations? What about getting them to write the cards? I imagine that a card written by a grandchild, niece or nephew would be even more welcome to a relative than one from the mother or father of the family.
What can the father do? He may or may not be the sole breadwinner but that’s a limited, if important, role anyway. What about making Christmas a time to get to know the children, go for a walk with them, play cards or games with them? – in short, to give them time, a listening ear and an attentive heart. ‘Be careful what you give your children for you are sure to get it back,’ wrote a perceptive lady called Barbara Kingsolver. And if the father is not a cordon bleu chef, he could still be a commis chef and clean the pots and pans. (That’s the job I’ve chosen in the friary where I live.) It’s surprising what you can talk about in the kitchen when you are engaged in the not too demanding task of cleaning a saucepan. Or the father could make a selection of what is or what isn’t worth watching on TV over the holiday period.
And a fresh start by all on family prayer in one form or another could put Christ into Christmas. And it would be the better for it.