NEED I tell you there are only six more sleeps until the big day? Pre-Christmas buzz is building. Smallies are vibrating with excitement in anticipation of the Big Red Man’s arrival.
My daughter is spewing Christmas cheer from the moment she opens her eyes in the morning until she closes them at night. Each advent calendar window is opened with tremendous expectation, Christmas FM is relentlessly jingle-bell-rocking us throughout the day, and texts from friends home for the holidays trying to squeeze in a year’s worth of interaction into a Christmas swim in Robert’s Cove and a night out in The Oval are mounting.
If you are super-organised you are probably going to spend the next few days smugly wrapping presents, collecting your pre-ordered ham, swanning to Christmas drinks, and strolling around town bumping into old school friends home from capital cities wearing expensive coats, linking arms with their handsome partners.
If you’re one of the less organised, you’ll start to think about writing a shopping list tomorrow, googling “What size turkey feeds 8 people”, and everyone you know will be getting an Eason’s gift voucher as a present.
If you are part of the sizeable grouping of society who are not fans of Christmastime, you are probably (understandably) sticking your fingers in your ears for the next two weeks, avoiding shops, people and parties until most of the workforce go back to their jobs on January 2.
Tough year…
Not everyone has a six-year-old bouncing through December to keep Christmassy feelings topped up, and it is not a joyful time of the year for everyone, especially for those who have lost loved ones or are dealing with illness, or anyone who is watching the news and can’t ignore the many crises facing the country and wider world.
2023 was a tough year. We worried about the rising cost of everything, old people waiting on trolleys, young people not able to afford a place to rest their heads and live their lives.
We looked at countries like the UK and the US and wondered how much more they could disintegrate, and, after watching buses burn in Dublin, what the future holds for our country.
We cried over stories of car crashes and biblical flooding and apocalyptic wildfires. Nearly 4,000 children are homeless in Ireland this Christmas, and refugees fleeing war are sleeping in tents on the streets of Ireland.
The culmination of the sad stories of 2023 has been the unfolding genocide in Gaza and the killing of more than 18,787 people, including at least 7,729 children and more than 50,000 injured from Iraeli bombings and attacks.
Real meaning of Christmas
The contrast between Christmas celebrations in the West and the ongoing suffering of the Palestinians in the very land believed to be the birthplace of Jesus is a stark paradox.
Many marking the birth of Jesus on December 25 will not appreciate that his birthplace is situated in the state of Palestine in the West Bank.
Just 10km south of Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is the site identified by Christian tradition as the birthplace of Jesus since the 2nd century. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and an important site of pilgrimage.
As a teenager, I visited that famous church on a whirlwind tour of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In the early 1990s, while on holiday in Cyprus, my family decided to give the beach a break for a two-day trip to Jerusalem.
After overnighting on a cruise ship, we were herded onto coaches and bussed to various historic locations. Turns out Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Mount of Olives, and the Garden of Gethsemane were real destinations and not just forgotten places mentioned at Sunday Mass and Nativity plays.
It was a worthwhile experience.
I wedged a written note to God into a crevice of the Western (Wailing) Wall, was swept along with a crowd on the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus walked to his crucifixion, and crept into an underground corner of the Church of the Nativity to see the spot where “tradition has it” Jesus was born.
The tour guide prefaced much of what she said that day with “tradition has it”.
I was 13, oblivious to the intricate history and tensions of Jerusalem, and doubtful that an underground corner of this elaborate church was ever the site of a stable with the baby Jesus as the centrepiece.
Even at a young age, I was cynical that these real-life locations were truly authentic and not just for the benefit of busloads of tourists/pilgrims.
That trip was probably the start of my disillusionment with organised religion.
Too many religions are based on what one man said a very, very long time ago for me to pledge my allegiance.
It seemed to me the core messages across various religions emphasising love, compassion, and treating others as one would like to be treated were eminently sensible.
The problems seemed to come from disagreements over interpretations of ancient holy books. Holy books that were as reliable, historically, as the corner of an ornate church being the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
I’ve been reminiscing about that brief visit to the Holy Land and, as Christmas approaches, thinking about the irony of celebrating the child born in Bethlehem, whose message of peace, love, and compassion has survived millennia and transcended borders, while just a short distance away, the cries for a ceasefire for Gaza are unanswered.
While Western leaders rejoice in festive cheer next week, Palestinians face violence, turmoil, and a fight for basic human rights and survival.
Ireland’s empathy for the plight of the Palestinians stems from our history of British colonialisation and oppression.
Regardless of country or creed, a ceasefire in Gaza is the decent, humane and conscionable thing to do, and in Ireland we must continue to use our voices and diplomatic power to help bring an end to the horrors in Gaza.
It is the ‘Christian’ thing to do.
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