That period between Christmas and New Year is weird, isn’t it?
Michael McIntyre explains it very well:
You may well have the Christmas blues. Christmas feels over. In fact, it starts to pall by bedtime on Christmas night, doesn’t it?
Why? Because we sadly insist on starting Christmas in mid-November, ignoring Advent, mistakenly thinking it’s a season of preparation for Christmas when it is, in fact, a season of preparation (and fasting) for Christ’s return.
We should be doing Advent properly and then let the good times roll, feasting for twelve days, beginning on Christmas Day.
Given the choice, I’d rather do a Christmastide properly for twelve days starting on 25th December, than do it in fits and starts, half-cock for nearly two months.
I tried to do that last year, with some success. This year, paid and contracted work has rather gotten in the way - which demonstrates how hard it is to live a seasonal and counter-cultural life. I’ve tried to mitigate that by writing this post before Christmas. And it’s only a short one. I’ve not missed a week since starting the column just over a year ago, so I don’t want to start missing one now.
The Christmas Greens
One highlight of 2021 was listening to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, re-translated from the 14th century English and read by poet Simon Armitage. On listening, I discovered that story is set at Christmastide. It’s a strange but intriguing take which, I think, is about the interplay between Christian virtue and knightly codes of valour.
I also saw this page of it in The British Library just before Christmas.
I hope to re-listen to this Christmastide and think it would be a worthy addition to the Christmas canon of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and A Christmas Carol.
Listen, and then you can hear a discussion of it on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time.
Oh, and twenty years ago, I was writing a radio sketch show called Concrete Cow. Episode 1 is on BBC Sounds for a little while longer - and the very first sketch is about Narnia, and it’s by your truly.
Happy Christmastide.
Anywhere near Cambridge in the UK? I’m doing a Water into Wine gig at Christ Church on Saturday 29th Jan at 7.30pm. Book HERE. Please consider coming - and bring a friend?