Living amongst the chaos of unpacked boxes and no place for anything I wondered whether the trusty selection of Christmas music would find its way out from the shadows into the open this year. And yes... much digging later the familiar battered cd and tape cases appear mysteriously next to our make-shift music system. Evie sings again, proclaiming the same old message of her title track Christmas: A Happy Time. Other less hopeful artists... Monkaton for example, have their own slightly more cynical takes on this happy Christmas concept. And while fixing our eyes on the manger scene can fill us with peace and joy if we let it, there often seem to be far too many difficult distractions that demand the gaze of our eyes long before we make it to Bethlehem. Our consumerist society demands that we demand to find happiness at Christmas, but most of us struggle greatly to do so of our own accord and it’s not long before you here anxious whispered hopes that this yearly burden will all soon be behind us again... Escape back to struggling only with mundane day to day realities. Escape!
This Christmas day all pre-prescribed Christmas stress was strangely bi-passed. At least for a brief and wondrous glimpse, as I jumped through an unclosed loop hole into a peaceful winter wonderland. Gently snow clad forest paths glowing in the slowly setting sun, leading to a still, still lake, semi-frozen and framed with icy mist. Yet family frictions follow closely... A porky chap with reddening nose leans against the entrance gate mumbling angrily, ‘you see my **** family, to tell them to ********* well hurry back’ he demands. But even he fades gently away into the background leaving us to tramp along in slowly expanding mangeresque peace and joy...except for the ducks... the wildly ravenous hoard of hooting ducks that follow us around our picture book circuit remind us gently that the Christmas peace and joy comes also through reaching out and meeting needs and selflessly seeking not for happy consumption but for a peace beyond our everyday understanding, that can lead us through all the storms along the way.
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