SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT JOY

I feel I’ve been a bit negative recently. I’m sorry about that. It is unbecoming of me, and it all too easily blurs from being initially funny... into me being a miserable whingebag.

I’d like to be kinder and happier than that. The world needs it, and not just from me, but from lots of us winsome warriors, refusing to be dictated to by the gloom in which we live.

That I think, was probably the intention of Frosty the Snowman, even if I ripped into it yesterday. Joy. It’s silly, yes, and annoying, but like a lot of things at this time of year, it is supposed to remind us that we were all children once. And deep within, we sort of still are. Don’t allow anything to steal your joy.

That’s what happened to Scrooge too, of course. I’ve referenced him a few times now, and yet missed out the bit where he faces his own childhood Christmases, the reality of the present and the warning of the future. I don’t wish to be the Scrooge at the beginning of the book; I very much would like to be the Ebenezer at the end, ‘keeping Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge’... with joy!

The Bible too, talks about joy. It describes it as a sort of fruit, the produce of being planted well. I always think of a tree which refuses to listen to the world around it and just bears that fruit all year round, mischievous and wild. That to me is what joy should be: uncontainable, free, untamed and deliciously infectious.

I’m not currently like that. It must be obvious. But I would like you to know that I would like to be. I would like you to know that the same little boy who once put all his clothes on at the same time just to make his sister laugh, is still here. I’d like you to know that the young man who wrote silly songs about fruit salads, and hot air balloons and picking-your-nose-and-flicking-at-the-cat... is still rolling in tears of laughter with a guitar, and is still the same.

So, if this Christmas, you find yourself singing, or you’re lucky enough to hear me sing, the carol: ‘Joy to the World’ ... remember that it’s probably supposed to be a prayer, and like most prayers, it could just be that the answer starts with you. I will certainly try to do the same. And who knows, maybe heaven and nature will sing along... even if it mashes up with Frosty the Snowman.