Christmas dinosaur

I realised, as I lay in bed the other morning, that this will be my 50th Christmas on this planet.

That's a lot of Christmases - stretching back to the childhood joy of receiving blank C90 cassette tapes in my stocking, to the present practice of exchanging wishlists on our phones.

This has always been my favourite time of year, not just for the gifts, or the wonder and mystery of it all, but the fact it's the only time that, once Christmas arrives, everything truly stops for a few days. I remember as a teenager walking the couple of miles from my house to Lisa's after Christmas dinner and enjoying the traffic-less silence. Things have moved on a bit since then but I still love the sense of hibernation Christmas offers.

So far, this Christmas has been a bit different. Normally, December starts and Christmas approaches at a snail's pace. This year, it seems to have hurtled towards us - despite the fact that I've been sat at home for most of the month. It might be because I've had two December courses of chemotherapy (with another due two days after Christmas), which always seem to make the weeks whizz by, but I think it's more than that.

Somehow, over the last few weeks, like a set of knotted fairy lights, the countdown to Christmas has become tangled up in the wider countdown of life, and the ongoing sense of uncertainty around my future. A few weeks ago, myself and Lisa named this in a tough conversation that felt like it was bound to happen at some point: "What if this is my last Christmas?". It was important to get this into the open, to shed some tears and to share how this felt - and its implications for us individually, and as a couple and family. There's every chance I'll still be here next Christmas, but also a chance I won't. Naming that tinsel-covered elephant in the room was hard but helpful - as is typing this now.

I recently started reading 'My Bright Abyss' by US author and poet Christian Wiman (thanks for the recommendation Stephen!), about Wiman's wrestling with faith and life after his diagnosis of incurable cancer. These words struck me:

“...part of my enjoyment of life had always been an unconscious assumption of its continuity... Life is short, we say, in one way or another, but in truth, because we cannot imagine our own death until it is thrust upon us, we live in a land where only other people die...

"Remove futurity from experience and you leach meaning from it just as surely as if you cut out a man’s past...In other words, we need both the past and the future to make our actions and emotions and sensations mean anything in the present."

That hits the nail on the head. The lack of a sense of, or surity about, my future can impact the present enjoyment of life, even to the point of sucking out its meaning at times. It may seem that this contradicts my last post where I talked about starting to come to terms with death, but it feels like these are two slightly different, though related, things.

In one of my earliest posts I shared a photo of a local tunnel, with light streaming into it, explaining how I felt God, and those who love me, were lighting the dark tunnel as I went. I walked down the same tunnel this week, this time from the other direction, and was struck by the metal fence that has been erected to stop you exiting at one end (pictured below). Before this barrier was put up, during lockdown we would walk through that area along the disused, overgrown railway line for several miles, almost all the way to Lichfield. Now it's shut off.

This felt like a good image of how my future can feel. What once offered a long path into the horizon is now seemingly closed off. And, as a new experience which I've had no preparation for, that can be tough to come to accept.

But while I typed this yesterday, news appeared online of plans to develop and reopen that stretch of track from Burntwood to Lichfield. Freaky!

So, the sense of future uncertainty does sometimes still give way to hope and, even, joy in the present. It's encouraging to know that Christmas has always been a time of mixed emotions. In Luke's nativity account, just days after the shepherds visit Mary and Joseph and relay the angels' tremendous message of "good news that will bring great joy to all people", Mary is warned of the personal pain to come: "a sword will pierce your soul too." Life and deathly sorrow in the space of a few sentences.

The fact that life seems more fragile than ever means that we will appreciate in new ways the family gatherings we have this Christmas. There is also a spreading sense of illumination in our house with multiple fairy light bunches draped around the kitchen and lounge. It feels warmly symbolic. Even my record player is lit up...

As mentioned in my last post, I love the interplay between light and dark at this time of year - including when it comes in the shape of an inflatable Christmas dinosaur in one street near us. Beggars can't be choosers!

Tomorrow is the shortest day - and the longest night - of 2023 as we enter the winter solstice, with the promise of the gradual return of the light. I love the historical tales of Christians building on this Celtic festival by decorating a barren tree in the centre of their village with fruit. For the Christians, this oak represented the Tree Of Life which sat in the ancient Garden of Eden (of Adam and Eve fame), and this enduring tree later makes a cameo appearance in the bible's final chapter. The lit-up Christmas tree in the corner of our lounge is a symbol of life and rebirth to come, a persistent and patient glimmer at the darkest time of the year.

At the end of a year during which people have given so much to us, I don't feel like I have much left to give, as the cumulative effect of chemo saps my mind and body. But then I remember the closing lines from my favourite Christmas song, 'Gift X-Change' by Calexico:

"The gift you give is love/The gift you live is enough."

Whether we're giving or receiving, may we all know the gift of our enough-ness this Christmas. And if you need cheering up, here's 48 seconds of pure 'Jangle Bells' joy that has become a festive favourite in the Bate household which Rosie (who does a note-perfect rendition of it several times a day) introduced to us: