xmas nigh

It is upon us.

The annual festival of peace on earth and goodwill to "men".

It must be men since wimin are too bloody busy making it happen.

I walked through town yesterday following managements instructions.

Past me walked all these shoppers; their Xmas was their burden.

Of course that was so I could finish rewiring the damaged bits of utility room wiring, something that took a few goes to make work.

The local market town was an incredible tangle of nowhere to park and nowhere to walk with no one benevolent.

I told management that, yes we had bought a wii yes we had all sort of games, yes we had all sorts of controllers, no, if it turned out we had left behind one lead that would render the damn lot impotent, I was not going back into that inferno to get one.

I wonder at Xmas, my childhood Xmas was very different. My earliest memories are cold, in an old farmhouse where all the heat came from open fires and a big open chimney like our house in Brittany.

The house was often cold but we were always warm, it was magical. We could no more have an artificial tree than an artificial Xmas.

There are people who say that Xmas is about childhood - maybe they are right.

Maybe each generation remembers child Xmas fondly as a time of magic and parent Xmas as a nightmare.

But, I wonder where it all went wrong..

The Christians took over the Pagan tradition, where the nights stopped getting longer, the light got stronger, life restarted. It was a celebration of rebirth so the Christians locked their infant religion into what was already there.

But it was a celebration, not a spend fest. Not a time where you were measured by your ability to extend the Visa, move to a new card, extend into forever your inability to pay for what you have bought today.

Perhaps the usurers stole the show, oh but hang on the bible and the Koran have a take on that...

Still, this is nothing like Xmas 15 years ago.

15 years ago yesterday we moved in here.

Managements memories are so much more accurate than mine.

Did we really live like that.

She can tell you.

Well she might, she is a bit busy just now.

R