TASP Christmas Message 2009

This year Christmas was announced to me while in the gym via a crackling speaker system in the form of a DFS advert. Yes, the half price happy sofa dealers were all too keen to remind me to merry with another one of their deals and, in case I didn't realise it was a "festive" deal, decided to throw in some sleigh bells and Mariah Carey just to ring it home. I could have screamed. Once again Christmas had come - in October.

I should be getting used to this. Only when we lived in the deep Shropshire countryside did Christmas begin in December unforced by the bandwagon of commercial gain and potential sales. I genuinely feel sorry for Halloween and Bonfire Night. Christmas comes so early they are but brief intervals in avalanche of decorative tat, only momentarily replacing the plastic snowflakes taped to the asbestos ceiling.

The premature arrival of Christmas is only matched in its absurdity by the lack of acknowledgment for the actual day. The 25th of December is the adopted day of the Christian church when they celebrate the birth of Christ (see, it's all in the names). This is a big thing for them and deservedly so. The anniversary of when their god - God! - came to earth as a human being to tell us all that, despite how rubbish we were, he still thought we were worth keeping and just to prove it would let us kill him in the most brutal way we could think of. It is the very beginning of the Christian Faith. Yet I have barely seen a single nativity display. I've hardly heard anyone even mention the word Jesus. Do you know the sort of look you get in Hallmarks when you ask for a Christmas card with Jesus on it? No chance. I don't want to say that Christmas has been hijacked but the commercial industry has certainly made their mark where people now look forward more to boxing day sales than to rekindling their faith.

Of course it's unfair to assume that the winter period should remain solely for Christians (a thought they certainly don't demand). These winter months are arduous and hard. The nights become longer and the days get colder. Animals hide away and we barricade ourselves against these desolate months. And yet we have made this time possibly the most happiest of our year. We shun the darkness by lighting our homes. We embrace nature by decorating trees. We feast together in the months of famine. And we share and we give when we have very little. The winter months, though they may be dark and cold, bring out our own warmth and generosity.

The covering of Christmas and its Christian origins is a sad fact of a commercial country more in touch with the latest iPod accessories than they are with their faith. But the characteristics that we show in these most dismal of months are still something to behold, and surprisingly Christian. Generosity, selflessness and charity. Brotherhood and togetherness. Thinking of our families, and friends and particularly those who have none. For a period that has become so divorced from its very existence it still holds the fundamentals and values of that beginning. And isn't that something worth celebrating.

Merry Christmas.

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On this day please take a moment to think our our serving Armed Forces spending Christmas away from their families and loved ones to fight on foreign soil for our peace and security. And particularly to those killed this year and their families left behind.