The Holiday Season

We’re entering the tattered remains of 2006, that time of year when it is dark when I go to work, dark when I return and continual twilight—on those days when one can actually see the sun—in between. No complaint, really. I’ll trade a bit less sunlight for no snow and the absence of the kind of cold that makes your boogers freeze any day.

I call this the Holiday Season, not because I’m afraid of the PC Police, but because it is the season of holidays. To your average Brit, it’s simply Christmas, but to Americans, it encompasses Thanksgiving and the ever-popular Pearl Harbor Day. It is also (again, not bowing to the PC Police but merely to demonstrate how living abroad has widened my world view) the seasons of Diwali (roughly), Ramadan (very roughly) and Chanukah.

But, let’s face it, for most of us, it’s simply Christmas, and the drab days of December are coming alive as decorations proliferate and stores deck their halls with festive displays (actually, they began decking their halls in October). The only downside is we won’t be having fireworks at the lighting ceremony this year. And I would suspect, due to the absence of fireworks, there won’t be much of a lighting ceremony, either. Some civil servant will probably just throw a switch.

That’s sad. When I first moved to town, the lighting ceremony was a huge annual event. But then the Tories came into power here and outlawed fun.

As a substitute, there is supposed to be a candlelight procession (I think they’re using flashlights—health and safety, you know) through the town center accompanied by some Christmas Carol singing—the real kind, with angels on high, shepherds and a baby in a manger, not mutant reindeer or animated snowpersons. It’s sort of an ‘in your face’ to the Christmas curmudgeons.

I like the idea that the Christian population is attempting to regain control of Christmas. I’m far from a church-going Christian, but I am a traditionalist (as well as a Capitalist, and I regard Christmas as a Capitalist holiday, which keeps me totally in favor of it) and I miss seeing manger scenes set up in town squares, angles adorning building facades and the sound of caroling. That’s not likely to happen, however. These days, we’re all too busy worrying about who we might offend instead of just acting responsibly and trusting others to do the same. And the world is a much sadder place for it.

Still, twinkling lights provide a festive feeling, even if they are in the shape of candy canes or holly leaves. A bit of snow would help, but I’m not going to wish for it lest the gods of granting ill-conceived wishes deflect the Gulf current and plunge us into Siberian-like cold just to satisfy my temporary nostalgia. So, as interesting as the ice fairs on the Thames must have been (when this event last occurred back in the 1600’s) I think I’ll give it a miss and put up with the darkness, instead.

And maybe sing a bit of ‘Angels We Have Heard on High,’ just to prime the holiday spirit.