WAS THE RECTOR RIGHT?

“It is midnight,” beamed the Rector, “So if I may be the first, do let me wish you all a very happy Christmas; and let us share the peace.”

I’m not an Anglican but I do think this is a nice thing to do first thing on a Christmas morning. I shook hands with the couple next to me. Then with the pew in front, then behind. Then the people leaning in from the end, thrusting eager hands along the row.

“Peace be with you,” we all said. For that’s how it’s done.

The service ended, and row by row, we shuffled out into the cold, black night as the organist piped and the choir laughed and chatted at the back. A firm handshake and a Merry Christmas with the Rector, and then a brisk walk back to begin the festivities of a Christmas Day.

Was he right? Would it be a happy Christmas?

-

“Oh yes!” said my Dad, holding his Periodic Table mug aloft like a trophy. That was something. There were socks and jumpers and scarves (I got two) and chocolates and biscuits and tins. There were vouchers and cards and pens and pillows and calendars, not to mention books and puzzles and games. Classic FM piped in the carols, and the aroma of roast bird and potatoes wafted in from the kitchen.

-

We went for a walk after lunch. The village was bathed in crisp December sunlight, throwing long pleasant shadows and lighting golden windows. The sky was rich and blue, the air as cold and as sharp as a Christmas Day should be. A father had taken his three children out to the green to kick a new football around; bikes and scooters, still metallic and shiny, flashed past, piloted by kids in their coloured wellington boots. Much further back, breathless parents did their best to keep up. They were at least, smiling.

“Ah - remember the days of walking around the park with Superted costumes and new bicycles?” I said, nostalgically. I sounded impossibly old, but it was really empathy doing the talking.

-

Boxing Day, the feast of Stephen, and a time for quiet reflection. Not really. We loaded the car with boxes of presents and food and made our way to the big family get together.

“Uncle Matthew, click this pen!” said a voice as I stood on my sister’s doorstep. I hadn’t even crossed the threshold. If you can be joyful and weary at the same time (and I don’t see why not) then I was probably that. I expected the pen to squirt water at me, or to make a noise like a whoopie cushion.  Three nephews looked excitedly on as though the front door had been spring-loaded with confetti or custard pies.

But it was none of the above. I clicked the pen. A sharp electric pulse ran up my arm and jolted my skin into goosebumps. They howled with laughter and then moved on to their next victim, who had seen the trick and was more cautious.

It wasn’t long before we were once again crammed into the living room, amidst the noise, the chatter, and the clutter. Lego was everywhere, children in pyjamas were bounding about the sofas, phone screens were on, and the loud conversations oscillated between outlandish conspiracy theory, and Star Wars. I somehow managed to hide the shock-pen throughout.

-

It’s interesting to me how we always try to make Christmastime special by keeping it the same. We do the same things, we eat the same food with the same people. It feels warm and fuzzy because it’s always felt that way, and that’s just how Christmas ‘magic’ works. But then when you look back, they blend into one.

There are some moments of hilarity that will never be forgotten. Even now I could boom the words “Tigers in spaaaace” at my sister and she’d laugh. But those moments stand out like plums in the considerable pudding of Christmases gone by. Could I tell you in which year my sister was given a framed, hand-crafted picture of two tigers floating through the galaxy? Nope. Could she? Probably not. Was it the same Christmas my Dad got an Enya CD with a track called ‘Shepherd Moons’ which we hilariously misinterpreted? Does it matter? Not really.

I thought about all of this on Boxing Day evening, sitting in the same place my Grandma would have sat. She was a great lover of Christmas - everything about it - from the the huge family parties, to the tinkling carols; the famous cinnamon rock cakes, and the delicately wrapped gifts. Her gift, the one she gave every year of my childhood, and perhaps even now, was to bring people together.

And then, on that seat, I opened a present from my Aunt and my Mum, which turned out to be a painting of a tall ship, painted (and now framed) by my Grandpa in 1964. He, like me, had a love of ships but would rather be on the water than in it. He like me, had a fascination with how things work and an eye for capturing a beautiful thing in art or music. His painting won’t win any prizes or find its way to the National Gallery, but it did mean a very special something to me.

-

Was the Rector right? Yes, I think so. It was a happy Christmas. And peace, it occurs to me, was always meant to be shared, just as he’d said on Christmas Eve. From the vaulted roof of the church to the last glass of Appletiser, and all the noise, toys, and boys between. From the resonant chord of the last-played carol, to the silent night when Classic FM was finally switched off - a very happy and peaceful time, like many before it.

And I’m very grateful for that.

THE BELL, THE BOTTLE, AND THE MELODICA

As if to prove my point about the different ways to celebrate Christmas, I ended up in the Bell and Bottle tonight, singing rousing carols with the Kennet Morris Men.

The Other Matt (from the barn dance band) had invited me, and I (like a great clot) had forgotten it was on. So I drove over and nudged into the crowded pub, not knowing at all what to expect.

They were already in full swing with ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ to the tune of the grenadier guards. I squeezed in at the back and grabbed myself a carol sheet.

The Morris Men are second-to-none when it comes to combining the traditional with the rowdy. It’s almost as though that tankard-swilling, pirate-like disrespect for convention has in itself become a tradition, and the juxtaposition of non-conforming while conforming is the only way to preserve the culture. They, the wives, and the community they generate, gathered around melodeons, squeeze boxes, a penny whistle, and a twelve-string, happily singing about ‘seraphs speaking forthwith’ to ‘On Ilkley Moor Baht’at’.

Matt beckoned me over.

“I brought something, knowing you were coming,” he said, eyes twinkling. “I’ll just go and get it from the car.”

I had a chat with Matt’s girlfriend for a bit, not knowing her very well. She is lovely, by the way. Then Matt returned and presented me with a bright red melodica.

Imagine a sort of child-sized keyboard, with a tube and a mouthpiece. That’s the melodica, air-lifted straight from Top of the Pops 1987.

“Have a go with that,” he said. And so I did. I quickly found myself playing Christmas carols on the melodica. And a sillier instrument I have yet to play.

“Next up, number 41! Here we come a wassailing!” cried the squire. The guitarist strummed, the melodeons and accordions piped into action, and the hearty singing began - with me blowing into a Fisher Price toy.

I have to say though: it actually was a lot of fun. I mean it couldn’t have been more different to last night’s soaring eloquence in the concert hall. It was a packed pub of Merry Morris Men singing to their hearts content. But it was equally as festive. And I left with a very similar kind of glow.

Admittedly I also had very little breath by that point.

I do know that Christmas has emerged as a hodge-podge of borrowed traditions and ideas. Saturnalia, Yule, The Nativity, Sinterklaas, the elves, magic, family, nostalgia, food, festivity, and gentle reflection, all combine, and that is part of the reason for these very different ways to celebrate it. What I like though is that even tonight (and actually last night too), the story of Jesus was still front and centre, even if not everyone entirely believed what they were singing.

“What’s next, Squire?”

“Good Christian Men Rejoice.”

“Right. And what shall the rest of us do?”

I was glad I went. 

ADAM LAY YBOUNDEN

Last night, my friend Gareth and I went to the town’s concert hall to see Harry Christophers’ vocal ensemble, The Sixteen, perform a collection of sacred Christmas music.

The chandeliers dimmed. The great mahogany doors were closed and the crowd were hushed, all eyes to the stage.

The concert hall really is grand. Relief pillars are embossed with ornate, gold filagree, before 
bending into arches that meet each other like sculpted porticos. Above, the roof is lined with figures, Olympians holding the roof with arms behind their heads, and looking down on the hall. A thin etched rail, then great curved windows, each reflecting the light slightly differently as they angle up to the delicately embossed ceiling.

The dimmed chandeliers hang on gold beams from the panels, bedecked with twenty or thirty candle-shaped bulbs. It’s long since they held candles of course but it’s still easy to imagine the flicker and the smell of tallow.

A single balcony sweeps around three sides of the concert hall. If you’ve been to an old church you’ll know the layout - the U-shaped arrangement, facing the choir stalls and the famous Father Willis Organ at the front.

The Willis Organ dominates the concert hall; a huge instrument of dark wood and enormous pipes, as tall as the ceiling. I’ve heard it only once. Either side of the Willis Organ, between the steps of the empty choir stalls, two golden lamp stands stand guard.

In front of the organ, illuminated by the spot lighting, the plain wooden apron of the stage reaches out toward the seated audience.

A chair, a harp, and a music stand.

Then, applause. I heard my own percussive clap and the snap of hands around me intermingling into the ocean of applause in the hall. Men in tails and ladies in sparkling long dresses were emerging from the bowels of the organ, where indeed I remember, is the corridor to the changing rooms.

Each of them carried a smart black folder. The gentlemen at the back, the ladies twinkling in green and black at the front. Harry Christophers CBE, grey-haired and tall, stood with his back to the audience after the applause faded, ready to conduct. Silence returned for a moment.

And then they sang.

Oh Walton and Britten and Holst and Posten! They sang medieval carols, with drum and tambour, they sang exquisite tunes of layered sound that made your hairs tingle. This I Have Done For My True Love, Adam lay ybounden, There is No Rose, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. All the hits! It was thrilling and beautiful in equal measure.

It occurred to me that liking this kind of thing is a little unusual. Over the road in O’Neills, a different kind of party was blaring among the flashing festive lights. It would be ever so snobbish to say that one thing is better than the other, but I do get that what Gareth and I saw and heard was a thousand miles away from Wizzard and Mariah Carey.

But it’s not better; it’s just different. And it would be equally as snobbish I think to insist that we should all love The Pogues and Band Aid and be forced to sing along. It’s just different that’s all. Like coloured lights or white, like outside decorations that belt out to the world, “IT’S CHRIIIISTMAS!” or the subtle joy of a warm fire and a woollen stocking.

The real joy is that we get to keep Christmas together in whatever way brings us love and happiness and fun. We live in a world where Adam lay ybounden in the concert hall on one side of the road, and O’Neills is on the other.

Isn’t that great?

CONSTELLATIONS

The stars are bright tonight. I walked the long way home from the bus so that I could see them, and at least try to remember those winter constellations.

There was Orion, the hunter. You could see his sword, his belt, even the tip of his arrow! I watched him slip behind the trees by the allotments.

Above him, Pegasus the Parallelogram (I’ve never been able to see the flying horse).

Then there was Cassiopeia, upside down in her W-shaped throne. She’d fall out like that; bit embarrassing. Below her, the brilliant North Star, and there, curiously round the wrong way this evening, was the Plough.

You might know the Plough as the ‘Big Dipper’. If it were up to me I’d have called it the Saucepan, and invented some story about how Prometheus burned himself campfire-cooking one day and flung his pan of beans into the heavens in frustration.

Anyway. It’s not up to me. The Plough it is.

Only, tonight, with its stars rotated, it was looking almost exactly like a gigantic question mark. There’s a lot more mythos I could attach to that!

The Question Mark - mystery of the universe, why, what, for whom? And how?

But of course, question marks were invented after ploughs. And true, in the summer, when sensible people were out in the fields stargazing, the Plough would have been in its familiar ‘saucepan’ configuration.

I looked it up. The stars that make up the Question Mark have the loveliest sounding names - Alioth, Dubhe, Merak, Megrez, Mizar. Some are ancient, blue, and burning the last remains of their hydrogen. Some are much like our own Sun on the main H-R Sequence, and quite a few are really double stars that look like they’re only one. Whatever, the light we’re seeing from all those different stars is already a century old. The Question Mark, is still full of mystery.

I got cold in the end. And a bit of neck ache, so I plumped for home. It’s nice to look up and see the stars every now and again though, isn’t it?

THE CHRISTMAS COMPENDIUM

“He doesn’t have any music in front of him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You don’t do you? You’re playing it all from memory!”

I smiled at the two old men nursing their pints. I was sure we had had this exact conversation last year.

“Well um, pretty much, yeah. These carols are sort of locked in here.” 

I tapped the side of my head, as people do. True enough, the Christmas carols I’d been playing at the pub were, are now, and perhaps always will be, engraved on my memory. All the F majors and A modulations and passing chords, there since childhood when my Grandma would take the Christmas Compendium out of the old piano stool and place it carefully on the piano.

It was a pristine red book, as I remember. On the front were a handful of cheerful cartoon Victorians: one, standing in sideburns and a top hat, the pianist with ribbons in her hair, both gathered around a pianoforte with a handsome candelabra. A portly man belted out the silent carol with hands rolling across a bulbous waistcoat. It was all very jolly. It was all very lovely. I always wished I could be there, in whatever hand-drawn universe they were singing.

I’d sit and turn the pages, little fingers working out each note as it fell along the score. Hark the Herald, with its swirling angels, O Christmas Tree, where the drawing of the tree seemed to grow up through the staves. O Little Town (the American tune) was accompanied by a snowy scene of horses and carts, and Silent Night with some text about the Oberndorf organ breaking down. Every note, with the smell of cinnamon rock cakes wafting from my Grandma’s kitchen, felt like magic.

Same notes. Same ‘magic’, if that is what it is. Though the book has long gone. I’d been thinking about it as the annual St Mary’s ‘Beer and Carols’ night went on. I looked up at the rafters as a hundred voices sang heartily...

“God and sinners reconciled.”

It was all very jolly. It was all very... lovely.

The two old coves looked at me from their pint glasses when it was all over. One of them told me he sang in a choir and the accompanist was brilliant but couldn’t play by ear ‘to save his life’. I said that that was probably more impressive than the other way around, which is, I admitted, pretty much what I do; it was not enough to dissuade their admiration though.

“All from memory eh? Remarkable.”

“Like Elton John,” chimed the other, chuckling.

“Yeah, you even look a bit like him ‘n’ all!”

I laughed, though I didn’t think it was either funny or true. I chose to take it as a compliment that my playing style might have subliminally reminded them of him, and that was just a sociable quip to end the conversation in a non-awkward fashion. People do that, you know.

Though I don’t think that kind of thing happened to the Christmas Compendium Victorians.

THE CYCLE OF A DECEMBER

This happens every year, nowadays. It tends to go like this...

December arrives, the advent calendars come out, and somewhere at some point I have a conversation with someone... feels like it’s different every year... about putting up the decorations either too early, or too late, in whichever opinion-camp you pitch your festive tent.

In early December, it feels as though the month will yet stretch out for weeks on end, and there are still oceans of time before I need to feel ‘festive’.

Mince pies appear. I smile and say ‘okay then’ while looking out at the still autumnal rain and crispy leaves. The mincemeat is nice, but I wonder whether I’d feel something similar chomping through a Christmas pudding in July.

Tinsel, lights, the smell of roast chestnuts in the air, and George Michael warbling in the shops as though it were 1984. Yet it all feels somehow still too... early in that first week of the month.

Then, mid-December comes along. This is peak-carolling for me: the old tunes with their familiar, grand, plonking chords and hearty lyrics - though it still feels like Christmas itself is a way off yet, somehow.

The Intrepids borrow my nectar card for their food-stock trip to Sainsbury’s, work starts to feel like a slowly emptying station platform, and we all navigate the Christmas Do (last Friday) with political skill and drunken diplomacy* in our itchy Christmas jumpers.

And then... every year... about this time... it hits me suddenly, despite all the signs and sparkling heralds I’ve mentioned and have lived through... it occurs to me that Christmas is next week.

And that’s when it gets a bit tense. I need to start my Christmas shopping, pronto pronto (even though in November, I’d clasped my hands together and told myself I’d get it all done early... again). I find it very difficult. And of course, it coincides completely with the schools breaking up and everywhere being full of people.

So, here we are then, in this sort of hyper-advent advent. A week to go and lots to do.

My only consolation is that this crazy rush always ends with a quiet reflection at midnight on Christmas Eve in the big church in the village. The silence and the stones contrast beautifully with the outside world. That, as well as Christmas Day itself of course, is a thing to look forward to.

Though, Boxing Day, when the whole family squeezes into my sister’s cold front room like penguins in a sea of wrapping paper, being pummelled with nerf guns and plastic drones to the tune of electronic bip-bops, and cries of “Mum, have you got any batteries?” - that’s a different part of December altogether.

*What I mean by this is the handling of inebriated colleagues while still sober. This year it involved humouring a bragging contest about how much toast a person can eat in one sitting, and then a discussion about whether the film Seven is a Christmas Movie because it features the Bible, and Brad Pitt getting a present at the end.

FLIGHT KQ704 TO NAIROBI

I think it has to be a crossed-wire. Perhaps an email that just added something random to my calendar, or a text I clicked on once, or something else I just don't remember.

There's not really any other way to explain how Flight KQ704 to Nairobi has ended up in my diary on February 5th. Why in the world would I book a random flight to Kenya?

What's more troubling is that the return flight back to London has also appeared... on the 6th! So I'd be there for one African night, then be flying home again early the next morning. Who's booking that kind of trip? And why?

I'm not going to Kenya. And yes, I'm going to need a lot more confirmation before I believe it's 'more than just coincidence' or something. I'm going to need the tickets in the post, or an angel showing me the plane, or maybe a dream about leading worship in Africa with Richard Branson playing the djembe or something. Nothing against Kenya by the way - I'm sure it's lovely and the people are amazing; it's just that it wouldn't have been a choice I'd have made for February 2020.

... which is why this is weird. How can this kind of thing happen? And are there random barn dance gigs appearing in other people's calendars reminding them to learn the tunes for the Gloucester Hornpipe and Parson's Farewell? Is someone going to randomly see they're down to teach a bass guitar lesson, or attend a tech lunch on batch processing?

Actually, come to think of it, they're welcome to go to that instead of me - that's not even close to as interesting as it sounds.

GRANDMA’S HAM

A newly-wed couple were in the kitchen, just a few days before Christmas. The husband watched his wife as she happily prepared a beautiful ham, ready to roast in their spacious oven.

After a while, he became puzzled, as she began to slice off about a half an inch of meat from either end of the Christmas ham!

“Honey, why have you cut off the ends off the ham?” he asked while she rinsed her hands under the tap. She laughed.

“That’s just the way you do it,” she said in a sing-song voice, “That’s the way my Mum taught me, anyway.”

He thought no more of it. 

Then a few days later, her Mother came to stay for the holiday season. The conversation came up again around the dinner table.

“Mum,” she said, “Why do you cut the ends off the ham before roasting it?”

“That’s simply the way it’s done,” said Mum, “At least, that’s how my mother taught me anyway.”

Christmas came and went, and as tradition dictated for New Year’s Day, the young couple drove out to the old folks’ home where Grandad lived. They couldn’t resist asking him.

“Grandad, why did Grandma used to cut the ends off the ham before roasting it?”

The old man leaned back in his chair with a twinkling eye and a knowing smile.

“Well,” he said, “It’s because it was the only way to make it fit in our tiny oven.”

I heard this story a long time ago, and I think about it sometimes - especially when I make assumptions about a thing, or when a process doesn’t make sense. It reminds me that processes have to change to respond to seasons, and that it’s okay - it really is okay - to ask questions about why things are the way they are.

Change happens. Sometimes not all of us are up-to-speed with the details and it’s only good, brave communication that will help us. I’m rather tired of having to assume a thing because nobody’s actually told me.

Anyway that’s the story of Grandma’s Ham. Of course at this time of year, my own Grandma used to make cinnamon rock cakes. I actually wish I’d asked her to show me how. I feel like I’d give a thousand worlds for one of those.

THAT'S A WRAP

There's currently a viral video of a 'hack' on how to wrap a box if you've accidentally cut the wrapping paper too short. Essentially, you rotate the box by 45 degrees and wrap it diagonally, corner to corner.

It hasn't gone viral because it's genius. It's gone viral because people are outraged at the fact that other people didn't already know how to do this, and they did!

That's an extraordinary thing to get enraged about, isn't it? I mean if you don't know, you don't know - but there's no shame in not knowing a thing that many other people know... is there?

If there is, I mean if there really is... we are all in trouble.

I don't know how to fold a t-shirt. I don't know how to grow rice in a paddy field. I don't know how to ride a unicycle, or whether there's a good way to make lasagna not sloppy. I don't know how to draw portraits. I don't know how to survive a tornado, or slice an egg, or put up a shelf, drive a minibus, play canasta, or use a chainsaw. Oh and I don't know how to swim either.

Shame on me?

Here's the bit of learning I'm taking from the wrapping video: never assume a thing is obvious;it definitely won't be to everyone. Also, never attach a label to someone who doesn't understand what you think is simple. That, my friends, brings shame on you, not on them.

I'm going to do my best to always be patient, especially as I have to explain things for my job.

"Nothing is taught," said Confucius once, "Everything is learned." And all of us have to start somewhere. If we forget that, the Internet will turn us all into that person who beeps a learner driver at the traffic lights, or laughs at overweight people on treadmills.

Don't be that person.

Oh, and wrap gifts up however you like! That's what I do, and I'm terrible at it. If the people you're wrapping for love you, they'll care a lot less about whether it was done in neat diagonals, or if it was pasted together with last year's manky sellotape ends. Be yourself.

HOW TO TAKE OFF A JUMPER

It's that time of year again. The puddles in the allotment are crisp with white ice, the air is still and clear beneath the blue sky, and winter clouds hang above brittle branches. Also, the 'smart' gloves you bought are so useless you have to pull a bare thumb out into the cold, just to work out what time the next bus is due.

Oh and - I've been wondering about the best way to take a jumper off.

Yep, as the jumpers come out of the jumper drawer (lowest and fullest, and surely smoothest of the drawers), and I slip into one arm-by-arm, it's another reminder that at the other end of the day, I still haven't worked out the best way to take them off again.

How do you do it?

There's the rugby method - usually guys do this, I think. You just grab the jumper by the neck, and then with both hands pull it over your head.

I think this might be quite a popular one for the lads - though, there are some drawbacks: it ruffles your hair up like an Aunty at Christmas who still can't believe 'how much you've grown', oh, and it always seems that the jumper is somehow forced by the laws of physics to drag the underlying t-shirt with it, very much exposing your naked belly to the world.

That might be alright if you can style it out, or you have the Abs of Olympus, but unfortunately for the rest of us, while we're flashing our bulbous midriffs to startled onlookers, our heads are literally inside a jumper. You'd better hope no-one's photographing that Scooby-Do look.

Another way (and I think this is what I do) is the elbow technique. In this one, you pull your arms inside the jumper, one at a time, elbows first. Then you lift from the bottom of the jumper (inside), carefully over your head, using both hands to gather up the bulk of the jumper, and you stretch the neck so that the whole arrangement loops quickly over your head.

There are drawbacks with this too - your jumpers get stretched in the neck and under the arms. Plus it looks a little weird.

Are there other ways of removing a jumper out there? Maybe crossing hands and just pulling up so that it turns inside out? Does that work? And how do you cope with inside-out jumpers?

And is it weird that I spent so long thinking about this?