The true story of the festive season

I LIKE Christmas, I’ve always liked it. But one thing I don’t like is the annual whinge from those people who say we’ve lost the true spirit of Christmas and that it has become submerged in commercialism, consumerism, materialism and whatever ‘ism’ you’re having yourself.

As for that theologian I heard on Joe Duffy’s radio programme who was trying to stop us singing carols before midnight on Christmas Eve… well, I’m glad the people of Ireland got on the phone to tell him what an idiot he was.

So in order to clarify what exactly the true spirit of Christmas is I’m going to tell you how it all started.

Once upon a time, long, long ago in the Stone Age, this couple were sitting in their hut. He said to her: “Darling, we’ve done quite well this year and now the days are getting longer and it’s a down hill slope to spring. I think we should go to the store hut and get out the dried leg of venison from that deer I got last summer and a basket of those really big hazel nuts you found and have a feast.” And she said: “Alright dear, though I’d rather have hare than venison, and I think we should invite some of the clan round.” And he said: “Great, and I’ll give your dad the nice peace of knapped chert I traded for at the ford three moons ago and we’ll have a bit of drumming and some dancing…” And she interrupted him to say: “As long as that brother of yours doesn’t eat too many of those dried mushrooms and fall into the fire again.”

So the original and true spirit of Christmas is that you plunder some of the riches that you’ve stored up during the year to throw a great party with your family and give them presents in order to celebrate the fact that the days are getting longer. If you really want to honour this tradition in an authentic way you get out your credit card and head for the mall.

How do I know this? Well, there are several pieces of strong evidence.

We know that Santa is actually a pagan shaman and that in northern Russia there are people, or were people, who spent the winter in huts which, because of drifting snow, had no doors or windows. To get in and out you used the smoke hole in the roof so Santa doesn’t understand doors and brings the seasonal bounty down the chimney. And there’s something else.

Some years ago I was working in Israel and, not far from Bethlehem, I met a shepherd. He wasn’t an ordinary shepherd because he had been a university lecturer before he opted for a simpler life. He was extremely knowledgeable.

I asked him about shepherds watching their flocks by night. He said that shepherds in that part of the world always locked their flocks up at night to protect them from wild animals and went to bed like everyone else — except for a few weeks in the year between the harvest and the sowing of the seed when the sheep gleaned the stubbles 24/7 and the shepherds stayed up to mind them. “But,” he said, “if shepherds were watching their flocks by night your Messiah was certainly born at the end of August or the beginning of September.”

Ah ha, I thought, no wonder the theologians are a bit uneasy about Christmas. They’re feeling guilty because they stole it, and told a few porky pies about the birthday.

Happy Christmas.

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