I wish you peace

First of all, a very Christmas to you, my loyal reader. I thank you for all your support – I’ll always wear it – since it started up in 2014 and I hope I’ve managed to entertain you, or more likely piss you off, with my ill thought out ramblings. Whether you enjoy a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays – as a devout atheist, I am happy to enjoy both – let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear.

Later, we shall raise a glass to absent friends, absent due to geography, illness or death. Family illness – not serious, (Covid, not us), so don’t worry – has buggered up our plans for today and there will be just three of us slumped around the house with rising excitement as the prospect of Mrs Brown’s Boys looms ever nearer. I am conscious of the fact that for many people this will be a very difficult day, their first, perhaps, without a much-loved family member or friend. My thoughts are with you all.

For many, it’s a time for looking back at Christmases past. It would be for me if only I could remember them. The reason I don’t remember any of them is probably because nothing much happened. It was just my mum and me, huddled in the one room with heating, the appropriately named living room, with my mum occasionally topping up the coal fire as listened to our gigantic radio or watched our crackly little black and white television. I might read comics or play with the magnificent train set my dad bought for me in the early 1960s (I still have it). We never left the house, no one came to see us because apart from my paternal grandparents, who we would visit on Boxing Day, my Dutch mum didn’t really know many other people. Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t a sad time by any stretch of the imagination. It never once occurred to me, until I had a family of my own, that not all Christmases were like ours. So I couldn’t miss what I didn’t have or things I didn’t even know about.

In so many ways, the last few years have been terrible. Covid, Ukraine and now the catastrophic cost of living crisis have inflicted terrible pain on so many families. I’ll probably write about my hopes and thoughts for 2023 in a few days time, but I am not going to pretend I am optimistic, but then I rarely am. Instead, I’ll enjoy today and the rest of Christmas for what it is: a time for family, friends and, if it floats your boat, Jesus’s birthday.

Thanks for reading at least some of the 5000+ blogs I’ve written and a big thanks to people who have bought me a coffee this year. Every little helps and sustains my writing and I promise that I invest any cups of coffee to build and develop my writing.

Merry Christmas. I wish you peace.