For many people Christmas will now be over and new year as well, but in the Church tradition Christmas really only begins with the Christmas day story of Bethlehem. You may not know that the traditional nativity story taken from Luke (with angles) and Mathew (with shepherds) was brought into more general notice by St Francis of Assisi. Francis would have done well in our time in some ways because he had a real knack of seeing how a great narrative can be shown to people in a way that is accessible. He thought that the incarnation (the story of the birth of Christ) was so important that rather than long readings in latin, he would show people what was described. So he created a tablo in the form of an acted out play; set in a stable with cows and sheep, local people played out Mary, Joseph,shepherds with real sheep a donkey and we are told, what started out as a log wrapped in a blanket became a baby. I like to think that maybe a mother on the procesion lent her baby to the play, but who knows.

There is a lot to tradition and the fun and enjoyment of Christmas day. Lots of good food and possibly wine. People say its a time for family and good will. The reality though can be anything but leading to too much and people feeling others are having the fun and just feeling lonely. There is a huge heyp that begins in Oct and of course the commercial world needs this big lead up, but then its all one day full of often unfulfilled expectation and the lurch to New Years and then back to . . .

Perhaps there is something in looking at this as a season. not just a lead up but a follow up. How would it be if as in the ecclesiastical world Christmas lasted . . . . . Would those feelings of goodwill and peace permeate into the everyday and ordinary? Perhaps every meal may become a feast of celebration. The nut roast or chicken wings, the baked bean, chicken nugget or peice of toast held in a festive spirit, valued because it is a signifier of something more than what it just is. It might bring a sense that every day holds within it the potential for surprise and precience of some act of loving kindness, a giving to someone else.

There is that song by Wizard - "I wish it could be Christmas everyday". You , like me have probably heard it from October to Christmas eve when shopping. But maybe there is something in that, not even the mistletoe or the tree might seem out of place.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6oRQlw4BxY3xSJxWUY0Fea?autoplay=true

There is one place in the world where this is a given and you might not be surprised to know it is Bethlehem itself. There is a very special evening on the 24th Dec (and the 7th Jan). But being the custodians of the Church of the nativity the Palestinian people Muslim and Christians they call themselves The Living Stones; there are the stones of building and monument but here are the real people who live in this place. It is worth a mention that if the shepherds and the wise men arrived today they would not be able to reach the stable (probably more like a cave) because The Little Town of Bethlehem is enclosed by the Israeli government security wall.

This year Christmas in Bethlehem was cancelled how could the people there/ anywhere celebrate with such hostility having been and being perpetrated by two groups of people.
I have been to the Land of the Holy One and met with some of the people there, brave Jewish service people who have been members of combatants for peace, heard from settlers and drunk coffee in the house that has been rebuilt for the third time after being demolished by the IDF; drunk sage tea in a cave and been invited to the almond harvest, because if westerners are there there is a better chance of it happening. All this and more. But the one thing that was present in all these people was a sort of hope, hope that maybe if not this generation then the next or the next things may be different.

I think that all I can do in any of these situations is seek to find some way of bringing some sort of love, hope and understanding in my small place in the world. That if loving kindness, shown through acts of hope, and sometimes protest, may impact on me and perhaps a few others then change will happen, f not now, but the next generation or the next.
So I wish it could be Christmas every day