Father, Christmas!

The big guy in red is now safely back home. I would say at the frozen North Pole, but it seems like much of the northern hemisphere is frozen this December anyway. Global freezing, anybody?

Snow, ice. Red noses on humans as much as hardy reindeer. Mysterious visitors at odd hours of the night, arriving in darkness. Calling at houses brightly lit with beautiful, welcoming colours- yet often the cold colours of icicles and clear blue skies. Mince pies and one for the road- or is that sky- for the children's favourite. And not a few adults, too, particularly those of the Coca-Cola Corporation who first fashioned the modern red image of an ancient figure. Santa Claus, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle- or as we Brits have always preferred to call him Father Christmas. Bringer of gifts to little boys and girls who've been good all year.

Not quite. Beautiful, charming and comforting though most of this sentimental yet sacred Saturday will be as it falls this year, the name of the day reveals the real "reason for the season". We've been anything but good 'little' children every other day this year, actually! We've said things we've regretted, hurt those we should love the most, offended those we had no cause to. Or as a service book puts it "in thought, in word and deed. Through Ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault".

It sounds like judgment has been passed. We don't deserve to see the most lavish gifts piled under a tree, as we become buried beneath a tonne of wrapping paper. We don't deserve even to gather up the crumbs of the last roast potato- possibly a gift from Aunt Bessie to aid a mother pregnant with expectations of family life at it's best. Actually, we're miserable wretches. Once we were called sinners.

Indeed. A strange word, almost as incomprehensible and unacceptable to some as flying livestock and bearded old gentleman popping up and down chimneys. But this is reality. The reality which led to the greatest paradox of all. A gift beyond measure. A treasure wrapped not in brightly coloured paper, but improvised swaddling clothes. There was no brach of Mothercare when the greatest mother of them all delivered her first born.

Tradition tells it was a cold place too, a dark night. You couldn't get a hotel room, even less a journey home, because of the oppressive demands of an occupying empire and their puppet rulers, especially one called Herod. No cosseting from central heating, but instead the smell as well as the warmth of cattle, sheep and donkeys.

The greatest gift of all was packaged not in impossible to open plastic, but in flesh that was to be mercilessly pierced and a body broken just 33 years later. What sort of a life is that? Seems almost like one of those toys that kids will play with briefly, and then gets forgotten.

Hardly. For the life and death of this gift- from a Father who loved his children so much he could not let them suffer the perpetual punishment they deserved- was his own dear son- has had more impact on humanity than anybody else, or any movement, or any ideal, that has ever existed in human history.

The greatest gift of all comes from our Father- God with us, Emmanuel. Not Christmas, but Christ- or Jesus by name. A friend and a brother- not just for Christmas but for life, now and forever. Isn't that worth the biggest "thank you" ever- and good cause to celebrate.

However you're enjoying, or perhaps enduring, this Christmas, I pray it may bring you peace, comfort, hope and love. Merry Christmas! God Bless

On the Passing of PAL pals

'Phased Alternating Line'- the British TV standard. But even TV doesn't stay the same for long these days. John Logie Baird may have invented it in the 1930s in the modesty of a Hastings house, but there's a real battle on these days- for audiences and for format- web TV, HDTV, 3DTV, Digital TV, Freeview, Freesat, Ball and Bat, Take That....

Hang on, my brain hurts! Yet some of the programmes seemed as if they'd go on forever, rocks of stability in a river of changing tastes and technological tides. Even this though is no longer so. In the coming weeks, two ITV stalwarts- police shows both, respectively The Bill and Heartbeat will stop plodding on- in the case of the former over a quarter of a century after those famous copper bottoms (well, shoe bottoms, anyway) first trod the beat in the original titles.

It seems like the end not just of a TV season, but an era, just as the rather erratic sunshine on this last Bank Holiday weekend before Christmas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland signals the end of the holidays for many. But perhaps the most poignant passing from the small screen this week is of a collection of characters first seen back in those far-off days of 1973, when there were just three channels available to British viewers- and many households, like mine, didn't even yet possess a colour TV set.

37 years. Until recently it claimed the title of the world's longest running TV sitcom. I must confess I haven't been a regular viewer of this show for some time, but like millions of others around the world who'll be watching re-runs as if in a time warp for years to come, I shall miss its gentle charms. And not least, the haunting harmonica part written into the theme music by the brilliance of Ronnie Hazlehurst.

As a real-life, somewhat younger "Cleggy" attempts to keep Britain in order while his boss wallows in the post-puerpal delights of his second daughter, Florence Rose Endellion Cameron, the deputy Prime Minister's fictional namesake will be the last voice heard tomorrow evening just before 8.30 p.m on BBC One. AKA "the voice of Wallace", veteran actor Peter Sallis, OBE, will be left to put the bottle in the re-cycling bin.

Farewell, LOTSW. Here, in tribute, is my eulogy to a quaint piece of English TV history, to be sung to the aforementioned theme tune. It's no match for a similar effort written a few years ago in the wake of Compo's death, but I hope fans and detractors both might appreciate it:

A few miles from Huddersfield
The Pennine stones are rugged lime
The water’s clear
The folk no fear
In this country of thine

Some old tykes
With ageing lass
Who polish proud
Their Yorkshire brass
In Autumn sun
They still have fun
They never heard called “time”

But now my friends,
That time has come
That everyone must face
The bottle full
Of youth’s sweet dew
Is lost in the mist...

But while there’s
Still breath in me
And this glass still half full
These weathered men
Are boys again
With promise, hope and glee

So come my friends
Don’t shed a tear
At passing of t’year
For this is life
E'en with some strife
May it never end

We’ll drink then
The vine’s sweet fruit
And ponder days of yore
Our days we’ll spend
And laugh til ends
Last of the Summer Wine

(c) Mark A Savage 2010
Click on the title of this posting for a link to the "Summer Wine" Appreciation Society, and some other lyrics to the tune- which I had not read before I wrote this. They include, poignantly, some written by the late Bill Owen, who played Compo, and which were played on the TV episode which marked his passing in the show, shortly after the actor's death.