As many of you more frequent fliers of my blessays will
acknowledge, it normally takes me a little time to warm up and get to my
subject matter. No such prevarication
this year: there is only one subject, and it lies just across the channel.
A few Saturdays ago, my wife came into the kitchen as she
was about to go out for the day looking horror-struck: who’s called? I
thought. What news has she
received? I knew that this particular look
augured only bad news. Finally, she said
it – “There have been loads of shootings … in Paris.”
You all know me well enough by now to know that news of this
sort, in any format, always troubles me.
As a confirmed and dedicated pacifist, by which I mean against all acts
of anger and aggression, regardless of their motivation, the news of any death
toll – regardless of the number – always makes me recoil with horror.
But this news was that little bit more important. For my wife and I, this news meant more. It was one of those moments in a relationship
where words were not enough, but a hug and a few quiet moments were required. For Paris, for reasons I shall now share, had
recently become very close to our hearts.
In February of this year, my wife and I celebrated /
commiserated over twenty years together with a trip to – you’ve guessed it –
Paris. Having wanted to go for several
years, she finally managed to overcome my natural reluctance to anything out of
the ordinary, and to my inbuilt British sentiment about our Gallic
cousins. In the run up to our trip,
people gave us mixed reviews, from the tepid to the downright frosty, and the
general consensus was that if the waiters looked like they wanted to kill you,
it was most likely because they did.
So, on Valentine’s itself, we boarded Eurostar with a picnic
and a vague idea of how to get to our place to stay. We discovered,
in a very short space of time, that the reviews and the doubting Tomas’ were
wrong. We discovered, quickly,
pleasantly and easily, that there is one simple truth about Paris.
It is wonderful.
All this, recall, in the wake of the Charlie Ebdo event in
late January, which shook the city and brought it to international
attention. The shooting of a journalist,
and this attack on the free press in a country famously and rightly proud for
its freedom of speech, had been reported on the news with almost ghoulish
intrigue. Despite this, the mood in the city was upbeat, friendly, enjoyable,
and we didn’t encounter a single person who wasn’t pleasant, generous and
welcoming. There was no backlash of hate
– a friendly city simply became … even more
friendly.
So now you can start to see why the news of a few weeks ago
was so upsetting, and had such personal resonance for my wife and I. It was as if someone were attacking our
personal memories. It got even more
personal when we discovered that the attacks had taken place at a music venue
and at various restaurants – pretty much how we had spent all of our time
there.
Furthermore, I have been watching in awe how the people of
Paris have continued to display awe-inspiring dignity and imagination in their
recovery. Have you seen the wonderful
news about the silent protest? As they
still languish in a state of emergency, large gatherings and protests are
outlawed, and, in order to show how much they still care, thousands of
Parisians placed a pair of their shoes in the Place de la Republique – a way of
registering their protests surrounding climate change at a time when protesting
is banned.
That, of course, may be part of the problem. When you visit somewhere for such personal
and, let us not deny it, romantic reasons, you will invariably only ever view
it through rose-tinted specs. A Sunday
spent by the Seine will most probably only ever be looked upon through the hazy
glow of warm nostalgia.
And I think this is the key to this time of year. It is connected to a thousand thoughts and
feelings and emotions, wrapped up in triggers such as food, music, people and
places, smells, sights and sounds, and irrevocably linked with warmth and
happiness (or, for some, for the reverse).
For me, as a child, there were certain key signals and signs
that Christmas was due to arrive – the furniture would be moved to accommodate
the tree, and our house would be full of food stuffs it never saw at any other
time of the year such as dates and nuts.
Certain decorations that belonged solely in a Birmingham flat in the
early 1980s still live with me – a Rudolph and his reindeer frieze used to
adorn the entire wall above the fire, and a pop-up Santa in his car was filled
with confectionery. As the years passed,
and I turned from blonde haired child to floppy haired teenager, this time of
year was always accompanied by that mixture of too-cool embarrassment and warm
pride that decorations I had made as a child were still part of my Mum’s
Christmas collection.
I always loved – and still enjoy even now – those weekends
in the lead up to Christmas when you see, little by little, our dark world
transformed from drab and humdrum to bright and welcoming, filled with lights
and warmth. It is a real signal to my
children that December is about to start when the people at the end of our road
decorate the tree in their front garden which – for the other 11 months of the
year, is an eyesore, ugly thing, but for the twelfth month is adorned with
beautiful lights, and is a real thing of beauty.
As our family grows older, so too does it embed further and
further the little rituals which make our Christmas … ours. The calendar which
comes out every year, the candles, the box of decs for the outdoor tree, and
those decorations and baubles which are becoming old friends. When the winter Chris Cringle comes out of
the tree box, we know good times are arriving.
My wife commented this weekend that we needed a new bag for some of our
stuff, so old and falling to pieces is the current one. I bluntly refused: “We’ve had that bag longer
than we’ve had Thea!” I protested. The
bag has stayed. For now.
Tell me, how did your first mince pie taste / feel /
smell? And at what other time of the
year would you say to yourself “I think I’ll have a plate of stodge now
please”? I’m no great fan of turkey, but
you can guarantee that I will still be picking and gnawing away with greed come
the 28th or 29th.
Our special times, and special places, are so intrinsically linked with
our memories that their emotional value is priceless. I still cannot feel anything but warm when I
hear the opening bars of certain songs, and having two warm mince pies with
cream for dessert on a Tuesday evening is only ever permissible at this time of
year.
Schools carry their emotive and emotional indicators as
well. A wooden toy cot lies, usually on
the very top shelf of that groaningly full cupboard for most of the year, and
filled with all sorts of junk, before it becomes the centre piece of the infant
nativity in mid-December. I cannot
recall a year in my working history when my first Christmas card has not been
presented to me, unexpectedly, from a child in the playground. The school starts to rock to different tunes,
and there is a corner of each classroom filled with props and items that were
not there at the end of December. You
can recognise gifts of frankincense and myrrh from a Judean mile away, even if,
beneath that fancy packaging, they are really just empty biscuit boxes from a
disco of yesteryear.
Of course, it is at this time of year that schools also hum
to another tune – ill adults trying to keep their snuffles tissue-bound
throughout productions, whilst a child invariably shouts out something
inappropriate but hysterically funny half way through the donkey’s one and only
big moment. The jingle of sleigh bells
is almost imperceptibly accompanied by the near silent rattle of paracetamol in
staff handbags. Yet do you want to know something strange?
Staff are rarely absent at this time of year…
When the lists go up outside classrooms, asking for foodie
donations, I am almost instantly whisked back to Warren Farm J&I school and
the childhood I loved, the manic and almost obsessive anticipation with which
we looked forward to our Christmas parties in school. When I see a child dragging their bookbag in
one morning, whilst over their shoulder they carry their party clothes with
reverential care, I know that the party season is in full swing. And, quite simply, why not?
You see, even the worst Christmases, the ones when you had
that row, or burnt the cake, or got completely the wrong present (I recall
being the fortunate benefactor of an Ultravox misunderstanding as a child) are
generally blotted out by the sentimentality of the good. Although they might’ve stung at the time, you
can gaze down the portal of hindsight and almost laugh at the slightly awkward
memory, so strong and powerful is this time and place of wonder and magic.
I am, however, not too niave to acknowledge that this is not
the case for everyone. I am fully aware
that there are people for whom this is not a time of wonder or a place of
magic, but a time of hurt and sadness, and a place of grief and loss.
I am all too keenly aware that there are many who at this
time will be living not in a place of wonder and magic, but in a place torn
apart by war and conflict. There can be
little magic, and precious little wonder in such places, other than wonder at
how, once again and despite the multiple lessons of the past, man still seeks
to excel in the field of hurting others.
Furthermore, consider a moment all those place where
Christmas does not thrive, or, indeed, is shunned or even outlawed. It would be difficult to appreciate the full
majesty of tinsel and paper crowns in places where such things are banned. Think about the places where Christianity and
its most important messages are not only unpopular, but where they are scorned
and derided. It is difficult yet sad and
extremely important to acknowledge that there are places on this planet where
the story of the virgin birth, and all its inherent beauty and wisdom, are
mocked as heretic. Little magic here,
sadly.
Places where danger lies hidden, or silent, or ever lurking,
are nowhere near magical or wonderous, yet still they exist. They often lie hidden in places that you
wouldn’t expect; not necessarily in war torn nations or cities under siege, but
in houses closer to home, where we suspect all is calm, but I can assure you
that, for some, not all is bright.
Although you have never known me to meander in to the world
of religion or politics without flippancy, even I feel duty bound to
acknowledge places where belief and faith have been lost, be that religious
faith, or secular belief. There are such
places, and they cannot contain enough magic to look after all the people
within them.
My deepest thoughts are, as ever at this time, to those
whose feeling towards this special season is marred by the loss of someone
near, and the coming of the season does nothing to comfort, only to
remind. In this place or time, there is
no hiding place.
And Paris? Surely if any place deserves to feel unmagical
and devoid of wonder at this time it is the Gallic capital.
Having heard me ramble on for more pages than seems fitting,
this year’s blessay contains, believe it or not, three simple wishes:
Firstly, to those for whom Christmas is not special or
wondrous, then to you may I pass on nought but my simplest human good wishes,
devoid of any spiritual intention or agenda.
I hope simply and humbly that, as we reach the end of a calendar year, I
may wish you well as you forge your path in this world for another twelvemonth. The world is becoming a difficult place, and
I hope we may become some sort of friends in seeking a solution to some of the
troubles, no matter how small.
Next, to those for whom it is a special and magical time and
whose homes will become special places, to you I offer all the wonders and joys
of the season. I share with you the
sheer magnificence of what this season can bring and mean. The rumours around our school which suggest I
dislike Christmas are utterly untrue, and completely inaccurate. The truth is that I don’t like Christmas in
November, or even earlier. It robs the
season of something of its splendour. I,
like you, am looking forward to each and every one of our little traditions
that would mean nothing to anyone other than our family. There are hundreds of little things – now
that we are close – that I’m looking forward to enormously, and I hope that any
magic or wonder visited on our house in the next few weeks is visited a
thousand-fold upon your own. A magic
time, a special place, enjoy it all.
Finally, and this year most importantly, to the beautiful
people of Paris. How you have retained
your dignity, humour and nobility at this time has been a lesson to us
all. Times and places of magic and
wonder litter your every corner and square, every flagstone flanking your
beautiful river – never let anything stop that, and never change. Joyeux Noel to
everyone concerned – in the face of one of the most hideous acts of
unpleasantness imaginable, Paris showed the world what it is to care. In the darkness of what will inevitably become
war (sorry to drop a spoiler) Paris has been a light; in a world growing all
too realistic and harsh, Paris has sprinkled some magic. I’ve said in these blessays before, the world
is suddenly becoming very scared of its own shadow; perhaps Paris’ light is one
we should all walk towards – together.
As ever, I hope my little festive rambling has caused no
upset or outrage; certainly none was ever intended. I hope it may have raised the ghost a smile,
or a passing thought, even if that thought is “What is fatboy going on about
now?” or “He’s really lost it this time”.
Whatever your thoughts, please take from this blessay my warmest and
fondest Christmas wishes, and nothing but goodwill towards you all. It goes
without saying, but I hope your Christmas is a time and place of magic and
wonder…and more.
From the desk in the corridor, looking ahead to what
portents to be a challenging and important 2016, that it all.
