CHRISTMAS EVE

THE OXEN
Christmas eve and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers hearth side ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet I feel
If someone said on Christmas eve,
“Come see the oxen kneel

In the lonely barton by yonder comb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Thomas Hardy.

I can think of nothing better than this verse to sum up what the magic of this season means to me.
It is a mixture of legends intertwined down many centuries, combining to make a bright happy time when anything is possible if you believe enough.
What ever faith we follow it is surely a time for us to feel the bond of humanity which links us all, in love and good fellowship.
This poem was read to me by my Grandfather ,who new all about magic ,when I was a tiny child, I believed it. Every year he gave up his cigarettes in September and saved the money in order to buy gifts for the tree of us children, I always made sure he had a small box of cigars on Christmas day.

Christmas for me was always magical, a mixture of the smell of wood fires burning brightly and the smell of evergreens. The excitement felt by every child at this time and the wonder of candle light and shadows. Mine was a country childhood, and my Christmases were country Christmases. Simple by modern standards but full of love and the sense of having my own place in things.
I loved my world of fields and trees, sheep and cattle, I was at one with the seasons of the year and embraced them with my whole heart

There were of course carol singers and parties for us children in the old farmhouses, several each year ,such excitement for us ,and to be at the centre of things on that special day was a great part of its charm.

When I grew up I took with me all the love and magic to my new home and when my son was born it was my turn to weave the Christmas spell for the dearest little boy that was ever born. I realised then that the pleasure of creating the perfect Christmas for a child is about so much more that the gifts under the tree.
It is a spell to be woven with skill and care, a time for stories intermingled with treats. And spending time with a child which is the greatest gift of all. Time to pass on the gift of knowing how to make the day as full of wonder as is possible, so that in future time the spell will be woven anew, and so on for all time.
May your waking on Christmas morning be happy, and may your memories of Christmases past be as bright as my own..

A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS