An opportunity to be still, reflect and remember the most amazing event

THERE are fewer than one hundred days before Christmas. That made you sit up didn’t it? This has been such a strange year: Easter went by with us confined to our homes, many of us saw the summer pass without a holiday and we have got so used to not shaking hands we may wonder whether we will ever do this again. It is hard to think that, if they haven’t done so already, shops will soon be reminding us that the “season to be jolly” is approaching fast.

Many of us can’t think that far ahead – we have enough trouble at the moment remembering what day it is. I was listening to the radio recently thinking, “This programme is usually broadcast on a Friday… oh it is Friday”. I am sure I am not the only one to have had experiences like that.

If we are thinking about Christmas at all we are no doubt wondering what it will be like. Large family gatherings are unlikely to be allowed and those who have lost work through the pandemic will be thinking that it will have to be a time of cutbacks rather than extravagance and over spending. It amuses me that often in the New Year when we ask friends “Did you have a good Christmas” the reply is usually, “Oh, the usual. Very quiet”. This year that might actually be so.

Maybe we need to start thinking about how we will make this unusual Christmas significant and special. It may be more peaceful and less stressful than usual. We may find ourselves on our own at time when we would have been surrounded by family. How can we use that time and space?

We sing of Silent Nights and Peace at Christmas time. The first Christmas, with crowded streets, overbooked hotels and late-night recitals from angelic choirs, was I suspect anything but. We could treat our current “unprecedented” circumstances as a problem but what would it be like if we saw it as an opportunity? An opportunity to be still, reflect and remember the most amazing event in history.