Oof, I'm sitting on the sofa, bones breathing a sigh of relief. Why is it so hard to STOP?! All week I've known that's what I want, what I need to do and yet what with one Christmas celebration and another, on top of the usual work/life business PLUS getting ready for the weekend, it's just seemed impossible. No wonder people do (kind of) stop on Christmas Day - by that time we're all totally run out of batteries and do little more than vegetate on sofas.
Christmas. It seems harder and harder to relate the craziness of the festive season here in the UK, with what it's meant to be about. I know I'm not saying anything new here... I've just found this year even harder than others to focus on Jesus at all. The One in heaven gives up all his glory and beauty to become more than ordinary, unrecognised, born into a simple life. While our decorations/gifts/celebrations seem to become more and more excessive. Excess. That is the word. When I battle my way through the frantic shoppers filling the streets of Brighton or go online, or see any TV, all I can think is that advertising companies are having a field day. We're meant to be in 'crisis' but I'm not sure that the queues in shops are any shorter. Consumerism is God. And I am as guilty as the next. Not that giving gifts is bad... and, Yes, it's great to celebrate, and yes, Scrooge did need to learn a lesson - but that was about relationship at the end of the day anyways, wasn't it? And it is great to be with family and friends... but even that can feel a little too much, or a little fake, at times.
Christmas seems to highlight the stark differences in peoples' lives. I have to say i feel overwhelmed (and thankful) at the richness of my life - the amount of cards we've received, the invites we've had, the Christmas meals and parties we've attended. For some it's the loneliest time of the year. The other day, just before going to have one of the tastiest roasts in ages with some wonderful people, I walked through the train station. I passed two little children crying hysterically, caught between their father and their mother, who was very drunk. What will Christmas be like for them? What will Christmas be like for people in the Phillipines, in Syria, in all the places around the world where peace seems so far away?
argh can you tell my head is a bit befuzzled. I don't know what direction to come at this from, and what to take away with me. I don't know how to celebrate Christmas in a way that makes it more meaningful. I don't know how to do things differently when there is so much tradition and expectation tied in with it. I don't know what to give. to Him. O God Forgive me if I've become to busy to stop, to remember, and to give my heart.
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