This Year

You know, when I was younger, I used to look up at my parents every Christmas with a certain stupid pity and quiet horror.

Because, simply ...

They got no presents! 

Or, if they did, they were few and generally useless things that one could have no fun with. I’d look up from my army of Bionicles, later video games and books, with a certain sense of dread and foreboding.

Because one day, I knew, that would be me. One day, I’d wake on Christmas morning to find that Santa had not showered me with gifts to keep me happy for another summer. One day, I’d be left without.

Not that such a thought ever worried me for long - there’s no time like the present hey, especially when the present time is ‘Present Time!’

Regardless, time tramples onward through the seasons and no amount of wishful denial can halt it. So this year I find myself with a sad dilemma: It’s been a long slow way, but it seems my dreaded dream has finally crept into reality.

This year, the same synthetic Christmas tree that once dominated my world hardly stands up to my chest. I slept like a bear in winter the night before (when I finally got round to sleeping) and, on waking, I did not bounce into my parents bedroom buzzing with anticipation. I slept in, and was more concerned with breakfast when I finally crawled out from the covers. I didn't get bionicles. I got a shaver. A tool not a toy. What on earth went wrong?

Christmas is suddenly not about the presents anymore.

So what on earth is it about? And how does one cope?
How does one find joy? (Because if you’re not joyful on Christmas, you’re not really doing it right)

Well, It is of course the celebration of CHRISTmas …see what I did there? 😎 - God, the Big Man in the sky, coming down to be with us stinkers as a little darling child, that laughs and cries and dances and sings. And indeed, that is something well worth celebrating.

And there is the peculiar fact that, while today I seem to have finally grown up, I too spent most of my time running around like a kid among kids. Laughing my head of like a loon.

And it is, indeed, a delightful paradox that the year I seemed to have lost Christmas and grown out of it is the same year that I found it.

This year, I found Christmas in the other kids (my darling cousins) as they ran about like crazy little bundles of fun, like pure joy wrapped in flesh and blood like a gift wrapped in paper.

Just playing and laughing and singing, with childish abandon.

Rolling around on the grass in my good jeans.

Doing handstands for my cousins (I can’t do handstands).

Climbing trees too high to be safe and singing to the open sky.

(Sadly, there was no water fight in the end)

Gems of spontaneous laughter.

Dancing through the day with carelessly perfect steps.

Joy.