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Home and Family > Holidays > Keeping Christmas Magical For Adults Too
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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Christmas Angel
Erma Bombeck has written ‘there is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child’. It is a sentiment that echoes deeply within me, the benefactor of twelve years of Christmas magic followed by a few Christmases with the same flicker of enchantment, but mainly a strange sense of nostalgic emptiness, of something important lost. When I look around me for answers (and certainly sayings abound about the true spirit of Christmas, and how it has nothing to do with materialism but lies in charity, in generosity, in spirituality and so on) I can find many answers of the moral and religious variety, but very little about recapturing the silvery sparkle of magic which once characterised that sacred day. I remember not the actual gifts mystically transported into my stocking each year, so much as the astonishing thought that, only a few hours before, they had been high in the cold, starry night sky, on a sleigh covered in golden bells and pulled by reindeer. However is such a joy to survive the passage from childhood into adulthood?
Firstly, it must be acknowledged that a good deal of childhood’s Christmas magic was facilitated by adults willing to survive on barely an hour or two of sleep for the days preceding Christmas, lay out extraordinary amounts of money and generally work tirelessly to accomplish the feat. Children as fortunate as myself were merely the passive recipients of delight after delight – the stuffed stockings, the candle filled, carol swelled cathedral, the tumblingly enormous pile of gifts under the glorious, glistening tree, the great feast, the extended family and excited overseas phone calls, smiles and happiness and cuddles. One of the key steps, then, is to understand that magic is an ingredient very actively woven into Christmas and that, as adults, we are the weavers and bearers of that luminous thread.
Widely accessible wisdom about the weaving is that children are central to the spirit of Christmas – our own, family and friends, and those whose names dangle hopefully from wishing trees and gaze at us from charity appeals on television throughout the Christmas season. When their eyes sparkle with the wonder of Christmas, the sparkle reflects onto us. If we cannot for ourselves remember the importance of decorating our trees with every glittering treasure we have collected over the years, hanging lights, setting up nativities with love and care, lighting little golden candles and playing glorious carols, then let it be for any child visitor who should happen to stop by, or else be invited as the guest of honour to offer the magic back to us. Have Christmas treats at the ready throughout December, and a little collection of wrapped gifts at the ready for an unexpected child visitor. And let every gift to a child have something of the Christmas magic in it. If the gift itself is not a snow globe (and surely a more magical gift was never presented to a child or an adult!) or a copy of Babar and Father Christmas or a little nativity set of its own, then tuck in a tiny Christmas angel or robin or star wrapped like a treasure in golden tissue. We too will share in the joy.
As human beings we thrive on our stories. If we think of a seed which we hope will spring forth a brilliant green shoot on Christmas morning, surely our stories are the best nourishment we can offer it throughout advent. And what an abundance to choose from! Kenneth Graham’s Wind in the Willows offers a glorious Christmas chapter entitled ‘Dulce Domum’. Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did and What Katy Did Next all describe Christmas with its magic in tact. There is Louisa Alcott’s Little Women with its memorable Christmas scene, and Dylan Thomas’s nostalgic A Child’s Christmas in Wales. There is Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, Raymond Brigg’s heart- achingly magical The Snowman and the aforementioned Babar and Father Christmas by Laurent de Brunhoff. And, to save the best for last, there is the original Christmas story, complete with kings, angels, shepherds, a tiny baby and a guiding, glittering star, recorded especially beautifully in Matthew 1:18-2:11 and Luke 2:1-20. Let every day of advent be warmed and nourished by the Christmas reading our contemporaries, fathers and forefathers offer.
The other piece of folk wisdom from which we might draw is the centrality of charity in Christmas, that our gifts might not all be given for the thanks and whoops of delight they earn us, but rather be sown deeper into the spirit of the season, unwrapped and enjoyed somewhere unknown to us. There are a great many charities facilitating this process and they do great service not only to the have-nots, enabling them to participate in what many feel should be the happiest day of the year, but to the ‘haves’, who enjoy the great honour of partaking of this deeper magic. Let the gifts we offer at this time
be selected with the same love and care as those we offer our dearest friends and closest family members. After all, the gift those unknown recipients offer in return is infinitely greater. As a final word on charity at Christmas, there is an idea that people should not take too much pleasure in it, but that the gifts should be given with a long face, reflecting an awareness that one ought to be doing more and that if the experience is too enjoyable for the donor, somehow it doesn’t count. Nonsense! The gift given with joy, excitement and love is undoubtedly the best gift of all. This Christmas, let our thoughts dwell a little on the delight and wonder our offerings will be facilitating somewhere there might otherwise be none, and be very deeply glad.
If Christmas is to glisten with any of the magic it held for us as children, then, we had better be active parties in creating it. We have made children our guests of honour as the creatures who rekindle that old flame, we have immersed ourselves into centuries of ancient stories which create and recreate all that is sacred to humans, and we have taken part in the mystical joy of giving to the stranger, who may always have turned out to be the frightened young mother, or the tired, faithful father, or the new child without a soft bed we know so well from the story. But part of the day we may feel we have lost as adults is the delight in the wonderful surprises the day used to hold, when the filled stockings simply appeared, when gifts were many and unknown, and when tiny treasures sprung from crackers. How is this ever to be resurrected? I feel sure the answer is that, at this point, action and faith must mingle together.
The humble advent calendar can be a little source of daily delight if we let it. There is very little wonder in the garish, cheap-chocolate filled cartoony kind now so widely available, but the traditional glittery cards depicting snowy villages with Father Christmas in flight overhead, or the starry nativity still exist in some bookshops and many religious stores. The tiny hidden images, one to reveal for each day of the lead up to Christmas, retain all of their magic if we charge them with the sacred task of symbolizing something important about the day. The golden bell reminds us of the carols we can begin to enjoy, the little robin of the hungry birds to whom we can offer crumbs as Christmas treats, the fairy of the children’s wishes which, as adults, we sometimes have the power to grant. We must meet the Christmas spirit half-way, noticing the magic where it still sparkles fresh, and making much of the little surprises still hidden everywhere to delight us.
In her beautiful day book Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach describes a medieval Christmas Eve ritual of the preparation of a ‘Nativity Tray’. She writes:
'Legend has it that on the night of the Nativity, whosoever ventures out into the night bearing a succulent bone for a lost and lamenting hound, a wisp of hay for a tired horse, a warm cloak for a stranded wayfarer, a garland of bright berries for one who has worn chains, a dish of crumbs for all huddled birds who thought their song was dead, and sweetmeats for little children who peer from lonely windows - whosoever prepares this simply abundant tray, "shall be proffered and returned gifts of such astonishment as will rival the hues of the peacock and the harmonies of heaven".'
Breathnach has adapted the tray to include a string of cranberries, a few items of clothing she can bear to part with and the bone from her Christmas roast. This year I will add a couple of tiny wrapped gifts and a few gold coins and some frankincense. But for anyone taking part in this beautiful Christmas Eve ritual, part of the wonder will be reclaiming the tray on Christmas morning and inspecting the traces of gifts received, with all the wonder of the disappearing milk and shortbread we left out for that magical saint as children.
Above all, we must let our efforts to kindle the magic of Christmas be met by our faith that they will. We look for the star on Christmas Eve with a certainty that it shines a little brighter. We must go for a walk on Christmas Day, not just to see children delighting in new bikes and scooters, but to see the dew which glistens especially, the air bright with carols and bells. We must unwrap any little gift we are lucky enough to receive slowly and carefully, and find within it all the precious good-will the giver intended, so that fragrances are sweeter, flavours more divine, colours brighter and more vivid. This year, let us contradict Erma Bombeck, and wake on Christmas morning happier than ever to be exactly who we are.
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