Into the New Year...

We're well into another year, 2013, and for the superstitious the 13 on the end may not be too welcome, but could it be worse than the last year, or, come to that, the last few years with all economic crisis and all the doom and gloom that accompanies it? We'll see, and we haven't long to wait. By all accounts, it's more of the same and so far doesn't look very different, but let's be fair and give it a chance, it may surprise us.

After the Christmas festivities and the emotions of New Year's Eve, the entry of the New Year can only be an anticlimax. I had hoped we might get some snow around Christmas, but it was not to be. Last year it came in February and was substantial and made up for none around Christmas. Weather patterns have changed quite a bit since I was a boy and the seasons seem to have shifted. But why should the weather not change over the years, everything else has!

The world today is a very different one from that just 2-3 decades ago, and if we go back a little further it's like being on another planet! Thanks to scientific discovery and technological invention our world is in constant rapid change, with computers and mobile phones and other electronic devices leading the way and transforming our lives for better or worse. Either way, we have no control over these developments and we strive to at least keep up with them, not always with success. But there seems to be no other way to go even if we wanted to.

As our world around us changes, we too change with the advancing years. Some of us change in tandem with the changes going on around us and some of us lag behind, the gap growing wider with each successive technological innovation and new way of functioning in an ever more complicated society. I know that as electronic gadgets and devices become ever more advanced and supposedly easier and more intuitive, instead of simplifying things for me they complicate my life. The phone and the computer which were so easy to use once upon a time now require a lot of concentration and effort from me, as they are so replete with functions and options that I hardly know what I'm doing anymore. Even what seems to be a straightforward list of options presented to me becomes an almost insurmountable barrier of proposed new changes that leaves me spoilt for choice but confused for the same reason, so I tick one box and hope it's the right one for me!

Well, we've had the snows, the cold frosty weather, the icy winds, the flooding rains, the gradual thaw, and now in mid-February things have warmed up a little, but there's no guarantee that the sudden onset of mild weather will take us into spring. Many times before we've had worse weather as we've gone into March and April, and there have been years where we did not get any consistent warm-to-hot temperatures till July! From this you will deduce that here in the United Kingdom the weather is highly changeable and unpredictable from day to day, hence the reason we Brits talk about it so much and have made it our number one topic of conversation calculated to bore the pants of any non-Briton! But there you have it - it is what it is and has made us what we are and this isn't likely to change for several millennia to come when there might occur a massive meteorological upheaval. 

And this is where I finally conclude this post which has gone on for rather longer than I had anticipated and has been revisited various times by me over several weeks in an attempt to complete it before the end of this year and the advent of a new year, namely 1914! 

Easter and a Visit to the Barber's!

I was originally going to do a post about my three-monthly visit a couple of days ago to my barber’s who’s always talking dirty and telling me sick jokes (and who on this occasion nicked me just below the ear!), but then I thought that as Easter had caught up with me, it being Good Friday today, it would be more in keeping with the moment if I said something about the paschal season, though what exactly I’m not sure. Hey, that was an awfully long sentence!

I say it's Good Friday today but in literally a couple of minutes we lurch into Shopping Saturday and it's farewell Good Friday! So I've just made it. But now I've got to get my thoughts together and say something awesomely profound and thought-provoking about this specific moment in the year, second only to Christmas in this part of the world but superior to Christmas in other parts. It's really six of one and half-a-dozen of the other because if Jesus had not been born (Christmas) Christianity might never have come into existence. On the other hand, if Jesus had not become the Christ and then risen after being crucified, it could have had the same result again. So it's hard to decide which of the two is more important and perhaps there's no point in even trying to do so. Both conditions are indispensable for the outcome that we want and for Christianity to exist. 

My Barber

Have you ever wondered why the day on which our Lord was vilely abused, lashed, tortured, and cruelly put to death by crucifixion is called Good Friday? No, not the ‘Friday’ part, clever cloggs, the ‘Good’ part. I mean, what’s good about all that? Well, there are a couple of possible explanations and they're all available on the Internet, as is everything else, so don't expect me to waste valuable virtual paper and real time setting them out here. Just take a virtual trip to the virtual place that provides information on this... virtually! And remember: if it ain't virtual, it ain't real!


I could say that I went for a haircut so as to smarten up for Easter, and I'm half tempted to say that, but the truth of the matter is that my head of hair, though slightly thinner at the top than it was a few years ago, was taking over my head and face and I was beginning to look a bit like John the Baptist without the beard and moustache. At least I assume he had a beard and tache because we're led to believe they all had that in those distant days, especially the prophets (though not the women, I should add!), as it gave them an air of gravitas and wisdom and was also all the rage at the time. Apart from a few fugitives from the 1960s, who think that a long untidy mop of hair is still in fashion, most blokes nowadays are either purposely bald or have a number one haircut, which is the next best thing to a bald bonce! Of course one day they will all end up bald or as good as and won't have the option they have now, but it seems we never miss it till we've lost it.

But coming back to the Easter theme, Holy Week doesn't seem to deter killers and terrorists from going about their usual business of... well... killing and terrorising! If one watches the news bulletins, it's business as usual all over the world and general all-round beastliness is not suspended even in nominally Christian nations. The business of aggression and assault is too important to break off, even for a day or two. There are too many people to kill and terrorise to let a backlog build up. Besides, it could set a bad precedent for the future and end up interfering with the wicked ways of evil men, a breed that abounds in the world and always has. 

Easter Party for Druggies

Well, there you have it, loyal readers, just a few of my random ramblings, a new angle on Easter and a quick word on my haircut and on my delightful toilet-mouthed sex-fiend of a barber! How are they related, you may ask, and, though I confess it is a tenuous link, a link it is nonetheless and it is that of coinciding chronologically. Haircut Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday. It all ties in. And if you think this all a little odd, just feast your eyes on the rocambolesque scene in the picture here which would have done Alice proud as she wandered around her Wonderland! It's all going on here and it rather resembles the unchecked lunatic content of some sick sod's sleep-induced imaginings!


As I drove home from the barber's sporting a brand new haircut, I thought long and hard about the Easter story in the context of the state of the world today and it was then that the seeds of a blog post began to germinate in my sick mind. The state of the world was a subject that was bottomless and fathomless, but my visit to the barber was not. Christ's suffering and sacrifice were clear enough and his overriding message was clear too. My silly haircut was not so easy to understand and wasn't even worth contemplating. When I got home and looked in the mirror, it looked even sillier and I had no wig in the house to cover up my embarrassment. If long hair was good enough for Jesus, why was it not for me? Can you imagine the Messiah with short back and sides? Had he worn his hair short, as short as I wore it then, the course of Christianity might have been very different. Indeed, Christianity might never have taken hold! And that is just too awesome to contemplate!! 


I look forward to Sunday morning when Christ the Lord is resurrected, though it is painful to think he will be put through all of it again just a week later for the benefit of Orthodox Christians, a sort of ultimate double whammy! If I needed to visit the barber's twice in the space of a week or so I'd be hopping mad - how much more for something a trillion times more serious than a silly haircut! And if you saw the haircut I got, you would think it silly too! In fact, this past twenty years or more, all my haircuts have been silly and embarrassing, no matter what barber I go to. Perhaps that's the difference between a barber and a hairdresser?

Christmas Thoughts III

It’s Christmas Eve 2011, just minutes away from Christmas Day, and things are quiet in the house - there's not even the sound of a mouse, but as we don't have mice in the house that's hardly surprising!


I've just come back home from collecting my daughter from a friend's house and I've now settled down for the night with a pot of tea and am composing this last-minute post. 


My feelings about Xmas have waxed and waned over the years from the nonchalant to the religious, passing through the various gradations in between. I suppose as I've aged I have become more respectful of the institution of Christmas and more circumspect of its significance, while continuing to question its historical factuality.


That aside, there is one Christmas tradition that I have come to dislike with the passing of the years, that of frenzied shopping and perfunctory present-giving, and I suppose these two acts go hand in hand more or less: if we didn't have to give presents as a rule we wouldn't have to do so much shopping. Or would we? Would we then just buy ourselves more presents instead? Hard to know without putting it to the test, but then we're opening a whole new can of worms.

I'm quite happy about sending Xmas cards but it's the buying and giving of gifts that I find comes in the way of a more relaxed and fulfilled Christmas. If we could find some way of doing away with this millstone of a custom and perhaps  just preserving it at the very most for one's children and closest family members we might be able to enjoy this important festive season, as it would automatically remove the stress and strain that it inflicts on our minds and bodies and on our pockets! It also reeks of materialism, as it seems to put the emphasis on material objects rather than spirituality. And the argument that one is giving to others cuts no ice with me, as we're also expecting to receive (except in the case of children) and if we don't get we don't give next time round.


The thing that really rankles with me is where people who make no attempt to see you all the year round and care not a jot about whether you live or die suddenly turn up on your doorstep laden with Xmas gifts, nearly all of which you don't like, don't need and would never miss. They drop the presents off (they always just drop them off, as they're in a terrible hurry and they have someone waiting in the car outside). You then realise that you haven't bought them anything in return, panic sets in and you are faced with rushing out to the shops at the eleventh hour to spend more money and make amends for your terrible oversight.


So, like it or not you're locked into the treadmill of gift-buying, otherwise those who give gifts to you may never forgive you for your failure to reciprocate and may shun you for the rest of the new year. But wait a moment, you think, that's what they've done anyway in the past. I haven't seen them since last Christmas when they deposited a carrier-bag of cheap shoddy prezzies on my doorstep and rushed off mumbling some excuse, not to be seen again until now! So what have I got to lose if I don't reciprocate? OK, so they'll be miffed, badmouth me for awhile and call me a few names behind my back but I'll be free of the drudge and expense of having to buy them Xmas presents every year.

The reality however is that you don't have the guts to do this and you drive yourself mad racing around the shops in an attempt to find suitable last-minute presents for your yuletide tormentors just so they can think well of you for another year. I recall one case where we had a tardy 'delivery' of Xmas gifts and when we failed to reciprocate, mainly because we were caught on the hop and with little time to correct our sin of omission, there were no more presents from that source when next Christmas came. And we didn't see them at all during the year - exactly as for the prior year when we were still in their good books. So no change there!


I find that devout Christians are the worst. They take the exchange of gifts so seriously, cannot forgive a lapse, and their subsequent vengeance is terrible! They seem to think that the spirit of Christmas is embodied in the buying and giving of gifts and cite the biblical Three Kings or Magi who brought gold, frankincense and myrrh for the infant Jesus. I sometimes wish there were special outlets selling these three items at Christmas at knock-down prices so we didn't have to rack our brains about what to get John and Jill. But alas no such luck! So it's the inevitable rush for that after-shave and that deodorant and that tin of biscuits and that set of toiletries and the odd bottle of cheap booze.


Well, anyway, enough said of that. As I mentioned at the start, this is Xmas Eve, all the buying  of gifts is over and any omissions are irreparable and the consequences must be faced up to in the coming months. It's time to turn one's thoughts back to the Christmas fare tomorrow and the abuse of one's body from an excessive intake of food and drink. It's the only way to soothe the pain of money ill spent and an empty purse or wallet. Oh woe is me!


As I write this, I am preparing to watch the midnight mass on the telly so I can once again assume the mantle of piety as befitting the occasion. A few rumbustious carols and hymns and some suitably humble praying and pleas for forgiveness should redress the balance and make me pure again. Well that's the theory. The truth of it is probably more like I'm riven with sin from end to end and irrecuperable! Or is that irreclaimable? Or even irredeemable? But whatever it is, it ain't good. 


Still, I do wish there were less spending and less giving of objects at Christmas and more giving of time. To give of one's time to another is the most precious gift we can give: time cannot be bought, cannot be extended, and is finite. Making time for someone is the giving of ourselves, not the giving of objects, it is the offer of our personal presence and company. Time given cannot be seen but its passage is very noticeable; it cannot be touched but its effects are very palpable. Perhaps people would do well to give more of their time and less of soulless objects which are often deposited in a hurry with the recipient for lack of.... time.

Dialogues with God II

Man:  Hey, God, where are you? I need to talk to you.



Hey, God!

God: Well, what’s the matter now, old fellow? Why are you looking so down at the mouth?
M: You've noticed. I’m feeling depressed, you know how it is.
G: No, I don’t know how it is. What on earth are you depressed about at this joyful time of the year?
M: Well, that’s just it, you’ve put your finger on it.
G: Put my finger on what precisely?
M: It’s the Christmas thing, the whole shebang.
G: This Christmas thing? The whole shebang? I’m not sure I like the sound of that.
M: Well, it’s true. Christmas just gets me down.
G: This shebang, as you call it, is the celebration of my beloved son’s birth, divine spirit made into human flesh. This shebang is about the Saviour of mankind. And all you can do is mope around and complain?
M: Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, God, and it’s not really about your son.
G: Not really about my son? It’s Christmas... Christ... mass... and you say it’s not really about my son, the anointed Christ? Kindly explain yourself before you incur my divine wrath and I send down a lightning bolt to turn you into a heap of smouldering dust!
M: No, no, you don’t understand! What I meant is that it’s more about me and the way I feel rather than your son Jesus or Christ or whatever you call him.
G: Tell me more, because I’m still mad at you and I haven’t given up the idea of making you go up in a puff of smoke!
M: Calm down, God, and I’ll explain.
G: Go on, I’m listening...
M: Well, there isn’t much to it, really. But in simple terms, all this Christmas business... you know... all the shopping, present-buying, card-sending, carol-singing, goodwill to all men lark... and even the partying, boozing and bingeing that goes with it... all this enforced merry-making and jollity... is doing my mind in. It’s not my thing really.
G: Not your thing? I could take this personally and turn you into a leper this very second , but you’ve roused my curiosity now. What IS your thing then?
M: Well, it’s not so much that it’s not my thing, some of it IS my thing, like the noshing and boozing, but the rest of it I could do without. I mean, I lost my job this year, our mortgage payments went up and we’ve fallen behind with them, the price of everything in the shops has hit the fuckin’ roof, I’m pretty-well skint, the missus is spending the social money on presents like there’s no tomorrow, and we’ve got to go around smiling and laughing and be joyful in front of the kids and everyone else just because your son was born on this day a couple of thousand years ago. And the worst thing about it is that he probably wasn’t even born on 26 December!
G: Hmmmm... I see what you mean. I’m still hurting but I see your point. I must admit I don’t rightly remember myself when he was born exactly, but that doesn’t really matter, it’s the principle not the date that’s important. As for the rest, I can see you’re not having a great time of it, but Christmas comes just once a year and you could make an effort, for the kids at least.
M: Yeah, sure, for the kids. I haven’t got a penny to my name, we’re about to lose our house, I’m unemployable, the kids are driving me round the twist, the wife’s giving me grief every day cos things are getting shittier by the day, and you want me to make an effort. That’s just great!
G: You’re not a believer, are you, old man?
M: Believer? I suppose not.
G: No suppose about it. You’ve lost your faith.
M: Well, maybe I have. What’s that got to do with anything?
G: It has everything to do with anything.
M: Oh yeah? Like what?
G: Listen, my friend, I want to help you.
M: Help me? You’ve never helped me before all the times we’ve talked, so why should you help me now?
G: What’s gone on in the past is not necessarily relevant to what could happen now. Why do you think I’m having these chats with you?
M: I’ve asked myself that and I don’t have an answer. Maybe it’s to make me lose my mind. I’ve made the mistake of telling my wife about you and she told me to pull myself together and not mention it to another soul. She’s starting to think I’m mentally unbalanced. That’s what you’ve done to me!
G: That’s what you’ve done to yourself, old fellow! And I advise you to keep all this to yourself. But let’s get back to the matter in hand.
M: And what’s the matter in hand other than I’ve fucked my life up and everyone thinks I’m a born fuckin’ loser?
G: The matter in hand is that I can help you get things back on track if you do as I ask you.
M: Well the first part sounds good but I’m not so sure about the second part.
G: Well that’s the deal, my friend. Remember, I’m the Almighty and I can do anything I want. Nonetheless, I want you to do your part.
M: Okay, let me have the deal.
G: It’s simple. Turn back to me... err... to God.
M: What does that mean?
G: Embrace the faith again.
M: Are you having a laugh?
G: No. I’m deadly serious. Do you accept the deal or not?
M: Hmmm... maybe... depends on what it means.
G: It means that you should say your prayers every day, go to church every Sunday and on all religious holidays, bring Me back into your life and go back to being a real Christian.
M: Jesus! Oh, sorry...
G: That’s one bad habit you’ll have to put an end to. Now, do you accept the deal?
M: Hang on, you haven’t told me yet what’s in it for me.
G: Oh yes, I forgot. Well, simply put, it would mean the end of all your problems.
M: How’s that then?
G: Never mind how, just trust me. All I ask is that you come back to me, and then I’ll make all your problems go away. One by one, little by little, you’re life will turn around and happiness and fulfilment will come back into it.
M: You’re asking a lot of me, God.
G: I don’t think so, especially as the benefits for you are immeasurable.
M: You’re right. For a deal like that I would sign my life away to the devil himself!
G: Bite your tongue! For that remark alone I should take back the deal and send you to him to do just that! You ungrateful fellow!
M: I’m sorry, God, I’m sorry, it just came out, I didn’t mean it.
G: Okay. Now I don’t have much time, I have a lot of things to do today. So let me have your answer now.
M: Alright, alright... it’s a deal! I’ll do what you say if you get me out of this mess.
G: Good man! Here’s the contract to sign...
M: Contract?
G: Of course. You don’t think we could tie up a deal without making a binding agreement, do you?
M: I hadn’t really thought of that.
G: Well, that’s the deal, take it or leave it. Sign on the dotted line and your life will be transformed for the better.
M: I’ll sign, yes. Give me the contract and I’ll sign it.

..........................

 God? Lord? Where are you? Where’s the contract? What’s happened? Where are you, God? Speak to me... speak to me... please... I said I’ll sign the contract... come back... I’ll sign... where are you, Lord? Where are you? I’ll sign... I’ll sign... I’ll sign.... don’t leave me, Lord... I’ll sign....

Passers-by wonder at the incoherent mutterings of the vagrant sprawled in the shop doorway and hurry on past, shaking their heads, as the night turns bitterly cold.

Post-Christmas Shopping

Well, it's that other time of the year now. The frenzied pre-Christmas shopping, followed by the obligatory Christmas Day feasting and frolicking, has now given way to a frenzied post-Christmas shopping spree. Except that now there is the added delight that this new bout of shopping is mainly for oneself and not on presents for others, so some really expensive and useful stuff can now be bought which will soon become indispensable accoutrements of one's day-to-day life without which life would be unimaginable.

Now you may wonder at this point what ever happened to the economic recession which was supposed to have drained us of all our cash and emptied our pockets, making our very survival precarious. Miraculously, as from nowhere, we have money to spend on yet another frenetic round of shopping. In spite of all our earlier whingeing and whining, all our chest-beating and lamentations about our sorry financial state, our coffers are inexplicably full again. And so we lay siege to the stores again in our thousands, snapping up the bargains and must-have buys like there is no tomorrow. And where our pockets are not deep enough, there's always the trusty credit card to come to the rescue.

And so the show goes on, and it goes on simply because it must go on, simply because we know no other way of going on. We shop, we consume, we shop, we consume. We invent needs and we shop to satisfy these made-up needs. It does not matter that only a short while ago we felt abysmally sorry for ourselves and we raged against the bankers and the financiers for supposedly destroying our purchasing power and reducing us to penury. Somehow we're back on our feet and out there jostling with all the other dedicated shoppers to have our share of goods. You may have perceived from all this soul-searching an eternal truth of our modern world. Never mind about “where there’s life there’s hope”. I say unto you, my followers, “where there’s shopping there’s life”. As long as we can shop, we feel confident that there can’t be much wrong with the world whatever else is going on. As long as we can shop, God is in his Heaven, Satan in his Hell, and Man... in his Shopping Mall. And Christmas is of course the perfect excuse for a mad buying spree. The stores were closed for one day and already we were feeling the effects of this in nasty withdrawal symptoms. The ceaseless telly adds on Christmas Day have whetted our apetite and kept us wanting but we were powerless to do anything. Now with Boxing Day here and the stores open again and tempting us with unmissable offers at knock-down prices, it would almost be a dereliction of duty to stay at home and pass up such an opportunity. So out we go to the high street, the shopping mall, the shopping centre, the industrial estate, the hyper-market, to get in those items that will revolutionise our lives and ensure our happiness for a little while longer. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get shopping!

My Birthday

Yes, it's my birthday and I'm wishing myself a happy birthday on here. It would be nice to have lots of fellow bloggers wishing me a happy birthday but, since that is about as likely as my growing a pair of wings and taking to the skies, I'm doing the job myself! How old am I? Well, let's just say I'm one year older than I was last year on this day, and leave it at that, shall we? After all, it's rude to ask a gentleman his age.

Needless to say, having my birthday on the day after Jesus's birthday, is no fun, in fact it's pretty shitty, as you might imagine. It means it is completely overshadowed by Christmas, that I have always received one lot of presents, taking in Christmas and my birthday, and that friends and family have been too busy organising for Christmas to think too much about my birthday. This bothered me when I was a child and a teenager and when people's presents and presence were very important to me, but it has long ceased to concern me now that I am much older and do not even really want to celebrate my birthday. But having one's birthday so close to Christmas day has been and always will be crappy and I wouldn't wish it on anyone!

Just take a look at that dark chocolate mousse cake. Wicked, isn't it? If the devil had a birthday cake, you might imagine it looking something like that. The blackest of chocolate with a forest of burning candles as a hairdo. If you manage to avoid singeing your eyebrows on those candles, the over-rich concentrated mass of chocolate is sure to make you sick as a parrot!

And of course we mustn't forget the presents. The above two are not mine, by the way. They only serve as props to give me an excuse to write about Xmas presents. They are 'generic' presents; often representative of presents whose wrapping is better than their content! In fact, with lovely wrapping such as this, if the gift inside isn't any good, you find yourself regretting you damaged the wrapping when you opened it up and now you can't use it to wrap up another present.

Christmas Thoughts II

Well, Christmas is all but upon us now and even the last bits of shopping have been done and what has been forgotten and not bought must now remain forgotten. It's time to get down to the preparations for Christmas Day. The decorations should already be up, Xmas cards should have been sent out days ago, the Xmas tree should already have been erected, where there is one, and presents should already be wrapped up and under the tree or wherever they are to go. Only one thing remains: Xmas fare. Food and drink! That at least makes all the running-around worthwhile... or does it?

As for Santa, he will still be doing his rounds as I write (as per the pic above) and will continue to do so for most of the night. So if you've been good throughout the year, you can expect to find your prezzie waiting for you when you get up in the morning. If there's nothing there, then maybe you have behaved rather badly and forfeited your right to a Xmas present. I suspect there will be a lot of glum faces on Christmas morning and a lot of soul-searching to understand why Father Christmas has not left a prezzie for certain individuals. But he knows, we cannot hide this sort of thing from him. So if you're one of the disappointed ones, then all I can say is "try harder next year!"

In all this of course we mustn't forget why we have Christmas in the first place. It's all about a baby boy born over 2,000 years ago in the Middle East who founded a new faith, who taught about the one true God and who handed down to us a moral code by which to live our lives. If we lose sight of this, then we have forgotten what Christmas is all about, why we celebrate it, what its message is, and what significance it has in our world today. And that's a pity, I think, regardless of whether we are believers or not. If nothing more, the existence of a man called Jesus (Joshua) who spoke about a God in Heaven is a historical fact. What is more, the Christian faith has shaped and moulded our world over the centuries and still does, and that, whatever else one believes, is a historical fact. And a myth, just as much as a historical event, can give rise to factual events through the influence it has on people's minds and consequently on their actions.

Christmas Thoughts I

So here we are again, at the threshold of another Christmas, poised to enjoy ourselves, by hook or by crook, and dreading what may go wrong over this critical period. The festivities have begun, Xmas cards sent out and pre-Xmas bashes attended; Xmas shopping is well under way if not already done, presents have been bought, wrapped up and some of them even given out, and Xmas fare has been brought in and stuffed in the larder and the fridge which is now groaning under the weight. There may be some last-minute things to do, some last-minute arrangements to see to, some last-minute gifts or food items to get in before you can finally sit back and contemplate Christmas Day with equanimity and without suffering panic attacks. Anything missing, anything not right, anything that needs fixing, must be attended to now because time is quickly running out.

Well, this is one side of Christmas, maybe the side most familiar to all of us. But there is another side. This is the time of the year when everything is magnified, when anything that is bad in your life will be felt all the keener and appear all the worse. If, for some reason, there is sadness in your heart, the sadness will seem all that greater. If... your life has taken a wrong turning, you are missing the company of someone, you have lost a loved one, certain relationships have gone sour or broken down, certain hopes have been dashed, aspirations snuffed out, dreams wrecked... if you feel you have been treated badly or snubbed by certain friends or relations... if you feel alone, forgotten, unloved, deprived of the affection of certain persons... in short, if things are not as they should be and your life is in a mess or seems empty and meaningless, then Christmas will heighten your sadness and your sorrow and, though you might put on a brave face and try to join in with others in the festive spirit, deep down inside you’re hurting and you cannot wait for Christmas to be over so you don’t have to pretend to be merry and joyful and happy and you won’t have to take part in all the festive activities that have become a part of the Christmas ethos.

Yet there is worse to be found in this world... there are those who are truly alone, who have no-one to care about them, who are deprived of human warmth and affection, who, for one reason or another, are isolated from society in general... the old and the infirm, the mentally and physically handicapped, those who have little or no family or friends or have been abandoned over the years by their close ones. There will be people who dread Christmas, fearful of spending it alone or in the company of strangers or persons indifferent to or resentful of them. Essentially they are the four h’s... the homeless, the helpless, the hopeless, and the hapless, and they are unlikely to feel much festive cheer and comfort at this time, rather their plight will be accentuated and they will feel even more benighted and more bereft.

Truly this is a world of many divisions and discrepancies and life is a constant struggle to survive and to be happy for as long as we have breath in our body. Christmas time sharpens our senses, concentrates our minds, intensifies our emotions and exaggerates our reactions. At Christmas the good seems better but the bad seems worse. There are no shades of grey, only black and white. Relationships are tested to breaking point and tolerance is stretched to the limit. The demands and upsets of Christmas can constitute a tinder-box. It needs just that little spark to set it off. But, with all that said, Christmas can be a time of great joy, of togetherness, of camaraderie, of celebration and goodwill, even, dare i say it, of Christian charity and love, when we all commemorate in our own way the birth of a baby those many centuries ago who, whether we believe in him or not, shook this world to its very foundations and transformed it forever.