Christmas

Forgive the sacrilegiousness, but I’m not big on Christmas. Sure when I was younger I partook in the traditional Christmas activities: I was in Sunday School Nativity plays [angel, angel, angel, Angel Gabriel, Angel Gabriel, Wise Man, Narrator [and yes I am aware that three of those were boy-roles and I am a girl]] but I never went to Santa’s Grotto and I never got particularly excited about decorating the Christmas tree [that's my little sister's domain and woe betide anyone who gets in her way].

As I’ve aged I’ve neither increased nor decreased in my festivities. I still give and receive presents [and, in complete honesty I do prefer giving than receiving: I love that feeling when you find the perfect present for someone]. I’ve even managed to get the perfect Secret Santa present for this year’s office Secret Santa draw. I don’t know why I put in the effort to Secret Santa; every single time I’ve done it I’ve put quite a bit of thought into it and bought a really appropriate present, I have never received a remotely thought-out one in return. Once I received toothpaste wrapped in a Lidl newspaper.

Even though my office is the institution’s face of internationality and we’re supposedly open to any and every religion, ethnicity and every other facet of human interchangeability [proof, should proof be needed, comes in the form of the model of a mosque sitting under the office Christmas tree. The fact that the office is overwhelmingly made up of pasty white Scottish folks is neither here nor there] we only celebrate Christian festivals. We have Protestants, a pair of Catholics and few undecided or undeclared and then there is the Militant Atheist [capital M, capital A].

The Militant Atheist is seemingly on a one-woman campaign to rid the world of all faith, belief and religion starting with our office. She takes every single opportunity to put down Christianity [I think she's too afraid of being labelled "racist" to treat all other religions to her vitriol]. One of the girls in the office is a little forgetful; she regularly puts stuff down and them immediately forgets where she’s put it, so she does what she’s always done and mutters a quick “help!” to St. Anthony. It’s an almost daily occurrence and the rest of us essentially ignore it and treat it like the ecclesiastical tic that it is. Not the Militant Atheist though. Every single time she cannot let it pass, she has to launch into one of her crusades.

Now for someone who is so Militantly Atheist one would presume that she impugns all Christian festivals, wrong. She loves Christmas, she loves it like – as the cliché goes – a fat kid loves cake. She even tried to get the afternoon off work so she could go to the university carol service. When I pointed out that it was a little strange that such a Militant Atheist wanted to go to Christian celebration, she begrudgingly changed her mind.

It does irritate me that Christmas is such a huge celebration, disproportionally so. Even though I am not a practising Christian [or perhaps because I have recently started practising church-going again] I am seeing Christmas more and more as a Christian celebration and not simply a money-spending exercise. I firmly believe that Christmas should stop being primarily about presents once you start getting presents smaller than you are.

I do understand that for some non-Christians that Christmas isn’t about the traditional Christmas, it’s just as good a time as any to spend some quality sentimental time with family that you wouldn’t otherwise see. You can get together, eat, drink and be merry; catch up on news, reminisce about times past, wear silly jumpers and debate who should be Christmas number one.

Although that last point isn’t strictly necessary as in the head-to-head race this year the only winner is going to be Sony / BMG [RATM and X-Factor winner are on the same label, Simon Cowell is the only winner in this media-hyped competition]. I’m putting my somewhat limited weight behind what is probably, alas, going to be a non-starter, but which, is seemingly the most “Christmassy” of all the songs: White Wine In The Sun. Take it away, Tim Minchin…

Communion [Hold Cheese Of The Nervous System]

I went to church on Sunday.  That in itself is probably a unexpected enough sentence, without me going on to clarify that it’s the second time this month I’ve been to church.  Yes, you read that correctly.

It’s a very different church from what I went to before. Before was 13th century cold, grey, echoey monstrosity with a little congregation and somewhat flamboyant stained glass windows; this one is a modern, powerpointed, community centre type place with a gothically lit crucifix hanging outside.  Before there was a hundred-and-thirty year old fellow playing Wagnarian hymns on an organ; this one has a young, live band, guest singers and karaoke style lyrics on the big screen.  In essence it seemed more like the kind of church people wanted to go to, not the kind of church that people felt they had to lest they spend eternity sweatin’ with the Prince of Darkness.

My old church with its mediæval architecture, large looming darkened windows and the reverberations which echo echo echo with every single little noise made it very Church-like.  That’s Church with a capital “C”.  This one, however, is a little different.  It’s church with a  lower case “c”; it’s more like a community get-together.

This week was communion, which I didn’t take.  Although I was at church, I’m still not quite at that stage yet.  Listening to the sermons?  Yes.  Trying to sing along to the somewhat upbeat hymns? I’ll give it a go. Imbibing on the representational body of Christ?  No.

If my non-partaking in communion bothered The Boyf he didn’t show it; it was he who said it would be okay if I simply skipped it.  While he wasn’t showing disgust, and neither were the other young people sitting in the back row with us*, there was one person who noticed and gave me a bit of stink eye.  The older man distributing the bread and holy wine noticed I had neither breaded nor wined; add to this I was a new face I did get a little feeling of “what do you think you’re doing here?“  but that was it.

*yes, the back row, becoz we iz well church rebels ‘n’ itz where all the cool kidz sit, innit blood

In comparison had the same situation arisen in my previous church then I don’t think it would have been nearly as subdued; that particular congregation mostly consists of tea-drinking, cake-baking, purple-haired busybodies…and they would have had something to say.  Perhaps not to the non-communion-taker, but certainly in stage-whispers to their fellow busybodies.

Would I go back?  Yes.  Would I go back on my own?  No.

At the moment everything still seems very separate; I can see the jigsaw pieces but not what picture they are creating.  Like the metaphorical jigsaw, I’ve been told there will be a point where enough pieces click into place and I’ll see the bigger picture but right now all I’ve got is the edges and a big patch of blue which might be sea or it might be sky.

Finally, coz I can…