This Week I’ve…(12th January 2009)

This week I’ve…

…watched Slumdog Millionaire

…listened to The Hold Steady (my new favourite band)

…read the news every day to try and make sense of the Gaza situation (NB: I haven’t achieved this yet))

…laughed in the face of adversity given the predicament Rachel and I found ourselves in !!!

…despaired at working late and underhanded-ness (in equal measures)

…had hope about Kinver (more in future weeks – hopefully)

…been completely random about the Autosport International exhibition at the NEC that I took Harry to for his Christmas present

This Week I’ve…(29th December 2008)

This week I’ve…

…watched Juno on DVD

…listened to - in the words of Paul Daniels – not a lot. Been bored with my music of late…

…read the Christmas and New Year special of ‘The New Statesman’

…laughed at singing ‘Survivor’ by Destiny’s Child on ‘Singstar’ on the Playstation

…despaired at Israel’s arrogance

…had hope about 2009 having read my horoscope in the Observer magazine (if you too are Taurus, go check it out – it’s well worth it !!!)

…been completely random about trying to remember what 2008 taught me…!!!

Merry Christmas Everybody, Everything’s Gonna be Cool… (The 12 Posts of Xmas #12)

May I take this opportunity to wish you all – especially my family, friends and regular visitors to the site – a very, very Merry Christmas…!!! (Why do we say a ‘merry’ Christmas but not a ‘merry’ birthday for instance…???)

I hope you all have a better Christmas than the one that my Mum and I had circa 1979/80 (see photo below).

To end ‘The 12 Posts of Xmas’ series, I’ll just leave you with the words of one of my favourites bands, The Eels:

Everything’s gonna be cool this Christmas

Everything’s gonna be cool this Christmas

Everything’s gonna be cool this Christmas…Baby Jesus, born to rock !!!

No matter what you’re doing, I hope that everything will be ‘cool’ for you…

‘The 12 Posts of Xmas’ are a series of posts that will be published between 1 December and 25 December 2008. From tales of woe through humour to mere rants, each post is based around a classic Christmas song – however tenuous that may be…!!!

Everything on this site by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. www.chris-allen.co.uk

‘Try to imagine a house that’s not a home…’ (The 12 Posts of Xmas #11)

The title for this post comes from what must be one of the cheesiest of Christmas hits, Mud’s “Lonely This Christmas”. Sung in a fake Elvis baritone voice, the song was Mud’s second UK number one reaching the top of the charts in December 2004. Even cheesier, the song is also responsible for the band’s most memorable British television performance where on Top of the Pops, the song was sung to a ventriloquist’s dummy. On paper then, the song doesn’t have much going for it.

Despite this, the words to the song have had a slight resonance with me this year. With its subject matter being about not being with the ones you love at Christmas, it has repeatedly reminded me that this year will be the first that I do not wake up on Christmas morning with all of my children with me. Fortunately, I will wake up with people I love and who love me back – and I’m not dismissing this in any way whatsoever – but it won’t be all of us together.

The situation for me though is lessened when I think about my eldest daughter, Emily. Whilst she too will wake up in a house where there are others around her and who love her (including myself), it is a possibility that the ‘house…’ she will wake up in ‘…is not her home’.

When a Child is Born…Peace & Goodwill to All Men (The 12 Posts of Xmas #10)

“All across the land dawns a brand new morn

This comes to pass when a child is born”

The birth of Jesus changed the world or so the words from Johnny Mathis’ hit “When A Child is Born” seek to testify.

On the spot where it is alleged that Jesus was born stands one of the oldest churches in the world: the Church of the Nativity. Interestingly, the Church is built over a cave that is believed to have been where Jesus’ birth took place informed by a tradition goes back to the Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c.100-165). In one of his early writings, he stated that the Holy Family had taken refuge in a cave:

Joseph took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village; and while they were there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him in a manger, and here the Magi who came from Arabia found Him.

A half decade or so later, Origen of Alexandria (circa 185-254) wrote:

In Bethlehem the cave is pointed out where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in swaddling clothes. And the rumor is in those places, and among foreigners of the Faith, that indeed Jesus was born in this cave who is worshipped and reverenced by the Christians.

It seems strange that whilst the Gospels clearly do not mention that Jesus was born in a cave (see my earlier post here), early Christian theologians believed that he was. This is important because so much we think we know about the Nativity Story is built around the ‘no room at the inn’ scenario whereas the Church marking the site is not.