Christmas? What do I think about Christmas? I don't know at Christmas, I'm so busy. There are so many services, sung and unsung, so many carol services, so much joyful singing. There are the sick and the ill to visit at home, in hospital and in homes. Xmas bazaars with much to buy. Carol singing from door-to-door and in the streets. Every school has a carol service or two. Collect for charity. Send cards. Visit the children and the old. No time to think.
No, I don't see much of Primrose, my beloved fiancée, she's out and around thumping out those joyful carols on the organ. Even on Christmas day we have two different programmes – services, visits, carol singing, hospital visits. However, we cannot complain about going hungry, everywhere we go we are force-fed with mince pies, turkey legs, chocolate Yule logs, Glühwein, sausage rolls, Stollen, always the best.
It's just a few verses in two of the gospels, the stories of the shepherds and the three kings are just stories, everyone eats and drinks too much, it's not the most important event in the Christian year, the presents are the most important, it's just an old pagan festival renamed, the virgin birth, Santa Claus rides around the sky on a sleigh, and so on. Well, maybe. I think that God wants us to be happy, so why shouldn't we celebrate once a year this very important birthday?
We do get some time off, to ourselves, in January, not that we go on holiday, we haven't got any money. But this year Primrose had a wonderful present for me. I looked her in the eye. I told her that I knew what it was. “We are getting married this year. How and with what money I don't know, but we are getting married this year.” She said “You knew?” I took her hand in mine and kissed her.