Christmas now gone



The traditional image of Christmas


And so another Christmas comes to an end and we head for the new year. For the moment decorations will stay up, the Xmas tree keeps its place, and the Christmas atmosphere still holds sway. And what went up for Christmas will do just as well for the New Year's celebrations, marking once again the transition from one calendar year to another.

When I was a lad I could hardly wait for Christmas to come round. Now I'm more grown-up than I'd like to be and Christmases seem to come and go all too quickly in rapid succession. But there it is, there's nothing to be done. It's part of the rhythm of life.

This year's Christmas has come in the middle of an economic downturn, with a gloomy forecast of what we can expect in the coming year, and with high unemployment and huge cutbacks in social services and state investment. Amid the usual Christmas cheer and partying, there is fear of what the future holds and the financial austerity that lies ahead.

For all that, my local supermarket is always chock-full of shoppers when I go and the end-of-year sales have drawn the usual stampedes of frenetic bargain-hunters. But that may be just an anomaly. No doubt I'm not taking all the socio-economic factors into consideration. No doubt. Still...

Anyway, I will leave it there. After all, this post was just an excuse to put up a pretty Christmassy scene: snow, snow-man, Christmas tree, sparkling lights, a brilliant star, and the warm glow of houses in the background... you know the stuff. All very pretty, peaceful and perfect!

In the Grip of Winter

Scene through the trees

Days short and cold, nights long and colder. White snow and grey ice on all sides. Chilly winds blowing hither and thither. Gloomy skies end to end. Sun a distant memory. Warmth a distant feeling. That in short may be the winter that lies before us. I dare say there will be days when the sun will pay us a brief and diffident visit, but it will not linger and it will not warm. It will be essentially a visual thing, but its appearance will nevertheless be welcome. It will be a ray of sunshine in a bleak and foreboding winter's landscape. And the sky might even turn from its now dirty grey to a clear cheery blue. Something to remind us of the all-too short summer which never fails to disappoint at these latitudes in spite of the global warming which is apparently upon us. It would seem that the more we are threatened with global warming, the colder it gets in this part of the globe! No doubt the boffins can explain this in suitably scientific language. Whatever the case, last year's winter was harsh and this year's winter promises to be harsher still. As a child I loved the snow and was not much bothered by the cold. Now, many moons removed from childhood, I cannot cope so easily and I would rather be sweating than shivering, though I dislike both. Yet, for all that, there is a certain wondrous quality about snow that leaves children open-mouthed and impresses itself upon grown-ups, be it favourably or unfavourably.

White lies the green field now

For my part, I love to watch snow coming down and I love to see it blanketing everything and I marvel at the eerie silence it creates. It may be an oft-repeated truism that it creates a magical scene, but it is none the less true. What I don't much care for is a snowfall that is of short duration, falls mainly at night when we're all abed and quickly turns to ice and slush the following day, which frankly is just a nuisance and little else; in other words, when we get all the inconvenience of it without any of the beauty, harsh though this beauty may be. In such an instance, I would rather not have it at all! Either it snows 'properly' or it should not snow at all! That's how I look upon it. No half measures, thank you. But this is what it tends to be here down south. More a token snowfall. No doubt those in other parts of the country who have more than their fair share of the stuff and where it lingers for days, if not weeks, on end, would chastise me for my levity and shallowness, but there it is. Still, the winter is yet young and we may yet get our sustained snow and sustained chaos and I may yet have cause to eat my shallow words!