Xmas

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’.

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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.

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Where is the Nativity Story in the Gospels? (The 12 Posts of Xmas #9)

(An updated take on this article can be read here)

How many people realise or know that the ‘Nativity Story’ in the New Testament of the Bible is neither complete nor consistent across the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)? When asked, many believe that the ‘Story’ played out through Nativity plays is indeed how it is in the Bible. When they find out that this is not the case, many are truly shocked.

To show how the various takes on the ‘Nativity Story’ have been weaved together from the different Gospels – including where it is not even mentioned – each version of the  ‘Story’ is set out below (note – the numbers at the start of the lines correspond to the verse of that particular chapter):

The Gospel of Matthew

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Christmases, Past, Present and Future: “…the Old Ones are the Best” (The 12 Posts of Xmas #8)

The almost annual matra that Christmas is becoming more commercialised/ commodified/ excessive/ consumer driven/ any other criticism is something that most partake in.

It could even be suggested that age is critical in this, with your number of years being directly proportional to the number of times you say that Christmas is not how it used to be. Having done so, we then reflect on some idyllic Christmas past that was much better than any Christmas that we could have today: the Christmas present.

And to prove my point, you have to look no further than the mighty Slade who wholeheartedly agreed when in their Christmas hit, ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ they noted how:

…your granny always tells ya that the old ones are the best…

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‘You took my dreams from me…’: Death and Christmas (The 12 Posts of Xmas #7)

Much has been made about how a “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues and the late Kirsty MacColl is the greatest Christmas song ever to have been written.

Released in 1987, the song takes the form of a drunken man’s Christmas Eve rant about holidays past while sleeping off a binge in a New York cell. After another inmate in the ‘drunk tank’ sings a passage from the Irish drinking ballad, ‘The Rare Old Mountain Dew’ before Shane MacGowan – lead singer with The Pogues – begins to dream about a failed relationship. From thereon in, taking the form of a call and response between two Irish immigrants lovers or ex-lovers, the pair insult and name call whilst recalling missed opportunities and forgotten dreams.

Whilst there are numerous poignant lines in the song, one in particular had some resonance with me tonight. In the opening lines, the drunken cell mate tells MacGowan how he “won’t see another [Christmas Eve]“.

Tonight I heard the news that two young, 14 year old girls who have a connection with my daughter Maisie, have died in a tragic accident. It really upset me and made me immediately reflect on my own family – on my children in paticular – and how much you treasure and love them but also how quickly and so often you forget or get distracted from it.

In one part of the song, MacGowan sings how “you took my dreams from me”. For those young girls, death has done exactly that. And death is indiscriminate and so it’s not just the dreams and aspirations of the girls themselves but all those who have or will have been touched by the girls before their untimely passing.

“So Happy Christmas…” and enjoy the relatively little time we all have with the ones we truly love. And never ever forget to tell them “I love you baby”.

‘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 might 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