While sitting in church, listening to a man with a tea towel on his head impersonating a shepherd talking about heavenly choirs, I found myself trying to work out what day this was. Being here on two Sunday's and one Wednesday upset my mind clock. Was this Wednesday or Sunday? It was still Christmas, mostly the same people, and similar songs.
If I felt this way I wonder how the curate felt, he had to arrange all these services, including amending today's as he could not work out how to have an 'all included' service while discussing massacring children, so it was shepherds and angelic choirs instead. Still it went off all right, all appeared happy, and many still have time off next week.
On the way home under a sun hidden behind thin clouds I passed many a Christmas decoration. Several houses had blow up snowmen, penguins and signs saying 'North Pole' and a reindeer or two outside their doors, all lit up at night. My first thought was 'Penguins do not live at the north Pole.' Maybe I was being pedantic but it appeared a pint worth considering. If those celebration Christmas, the 'Christ Mass' could get things correct in small areas maybe they might appreciate Christmas for what it actually represents.
OK some monk who's name I forget decided to appropriate the midwinter festival by adding Jesus birth to it, a failed attempt to end hedonism, and in truth Jesus possibly was born in March or April maybe, a time when the shops are less busy, but here we are with Christmas at er, Christmas.
Whatever the date the entry of God into the world, he lowered himself to the position of a child, enduring the world as it is for around 30 years and then after a 'sinless' life laying down his life, being separated from contact with his father for the first and only time in eternity, and suffering physical and spiritual pain all because we are the imperfect ones and required his sacrifice or we are lost forever, whatever the date, he deserves a better remembrance than plastic snowmen and penguins far from home.
Of course, he also deserves a better response from those who claim to know him...
