Past Four O'Clock

On a cold frosty morning? It's certainly cold as I sit here in the lounge exactly a week before Christmas, but whether it's frosty I really can't say. Frost and snow are something we rarely see here in the salty coastlands of East Sussex, which in some ways is a shame. Somehow it puts you in a proper Christmassy mood when the weather matches the expectations of the meteorological season, even if White Christmasses are about as rare as a penny black stamp. But it really doesn't matter.

The Christmas season is a heady mix of marvel, myth and Magi. The aroma of the spicey Christmas pudding I had last night with an old friend on his traditional pre-Christmas visit to me were as evocative and comforting as the fragrant Frankincense and Myrrh you can even buy on-line if you follow the advertiser link on the carol website linked to my slightly altered title. Well, if they'd had British Standard Time when it was written as we did in the seventies, then it would have been past four rather than three, I guess! Lovely old English words worth pondering though, from a seasonal song not heard often enough.

The enterprising retailer offers free next day delivery, a privilege not available to the wise men, which I guess must be why their journey took two years. Mind you, the way our once proud postal service seems to be going it mightn't be long before it takes just as long for some people's Christmas presence [ sic ] to arrive.

A STAMP OF APPROVAL
When Aunty Beeb helped to keep me from the wolf's door a few years back, one of the many celebrities I had the privilege of meeting regularly was Sussex author Raymond Briggs. He is a lovely man: although I found him a little difficult to get along with at first, I soon got through a frosty exterior and warmed to a man of real depth and life experience beneath. Whether by Freudian design or inspired, timeless and childlike genius I don't know, but he seemed rather like his own interpretation of the most welcome visitor at this time of year among children of all ages, Father Christmas.
Briggs has turned Father Christmas from a jolly red-faced man into a Victor Meldrew clone who most of the year is a grudging curmudgeon, but come Christmas morning has stamped his bootprints on billions of wintery chimney tops and left his junior clientelle untold delights, shiny new toys with all their promise to be lovingly enjoyed and hopefully with the power of a C cell included. Despite his own desire for a quiet life un-hassled by the demands he was born to, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Briggs' Father Christmas is a worthy hero to star alongside Her Majesty this year on countless millions of envelopes as the final postal push and the card kerfuffle reaches its climax. I guess I'd better get writing a few more of mine if I'm to meet today's second class posting deadline!

AND IS IT TRUE?
Is Father Christmas real or merely a creation for longing hearts, some of them little and others, like Bill Kerr's character in a classic Christmas episode of Hancock's Half Hour on BBC7 earlier this week, well into what we laughingly call maturity? I cannot tell. That is for souls uncynicised by the marketing creation which is our modern Santa to decide. No wonder this ancient hero, by whatever name you choose to call him- Kris Kringle, Der Weihnachtsman and so forth- is so rotund if he's been knocking back the soft stuff: sorry to disappoint, but his redness in Anglo-American society is largely to suit the whims of a Coca Cola marketing man in the early twentieth century. In Germany, you'll find he's blue: well, wouldn't you be blue if you spent most of your life with a herd of cantankerous reindeer at one of the coldest spots on Earth?
However, there is an unintended but wonderful symbolism in Father Christmas's red attire which those who want to see only the best in human nature at this time of the year are unlikely to spot. However, according to one legend it is the reason why perhaps the most popular natural inhabitant of Christmas cards, the robin, is such a burst of colour in the depths of winter.

A drop of blood fell from a cross upon a lonely hill, onto the little bird's breast. Red, the colour of blood that coursed through the veins of the infant Jesus as it has through the miracle which is every child and indeed adult since human life began. I'm not too grown up to try to make Blue Peter a 'must see' whenever I can (Blue? Red? Sorry, I'll try not too confuse you too much!)and last night's programme was a seasonal delight. Not only did we get to see something of the wonderful tradition which is the German Christmas market, but we were introduced to young Dexter Todd, the new-born son of my favourite presenter Liz Barker. I'm pleased to say too that like me, he's a Middlesaxon babe, born as he was at the same hospital as my younger brother was 44 years ago come December 23rd, the West Middlesex. Sleeping soundly and without a care in the world in his little red papoose, he was the perfect image for this time of the year, bless him.
But what kind of a world will he grow in to? Every heart hopes it will be a better one with more promise for people of all races and creeds than the one we endure today, a world without the ghoulish threat of terrorism, global greed and unmet need. It all sounds very much like a line from that lovely Johnny Mathis song I heard for the first time this year on Terry Wogan's Radio 2 show yesterday, When A Child is Born - lyrics at http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/cmascorner/Born.htm.

There the similarity ends however. For whereas in Mathis's song this was a child yet to be born, the Christian believes it's already happened: that child has been born, and that's why we can justifiably "keep the feast" with the finest foods and joy and merriment abundant in seven days time! If God himself can choose to walk among us, take on all our joys and sorrows, our wretchedness and our pain, and then to crown it all take even our human awfulness to a shameful cross where he shed the blood of life then surely there is hope. But he did not stay dead. The awful becomes the aweful as the "new birth" which is Easter morning comes to pass in due time because of Christmas Day.

To so many in our society this will just seem a tall story, as hard to believe in as Father Christmas. Like Mr S Claus in many shopping centres this year, sadly, and in cancelled nativity plays and carol services, the argument goes, any reference to Jesus and Christian symbols should be ditched in the name of political correctness and multi-cultural acceptance. But this really is throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as logic and supposed sophisticated thought try to take the place of simple child-like trust by ignoring this universal life story intended for all. Contemporary drama likes to proclaim it is "based on a true story", but why do we so easily reject what a film maker of a more believing age called The Greatest Story Ever Told?

I'm a journalist by inclination if not in fact, rather than a poet, but one of Britain's best-loved and most characteristic poet laureates, Sir John Betjeman, put it all so much better than I can (full poem at http://www.christmas-time.com/cp-christ.html)

And is it true? and is it true?
The most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant.

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.