A Strange Time of Year

With its festive trimmings, ritual meal and family gathering, Christmas is a topsy-turvy time, when the daily norms are subverted and chronological punctuation vanishes into an ether of twinkling lights and discarded wrapping paper. No doubt Charles Dickens sensed this tock-ticking when he wrote his seminal A Christmas Carol, the story of Ebenezer Scrooge who was haunted by the ghosts of his erstwhile business partner and his past, present and future distilled into three spirits warning him to change his miserly ways – or else. The subversion of time came home to me at seven o’clock a few mornings ago, when a little girl's voice commanded me to get out of bed and help her hang baubles on a Christmas tree….well, ‘tis the season of goodwill. Dazed with early morning confusion, I struggled with the perplexities of stringing a thousand – it seemed – silver and gold, red and rose-coloured gilt balls on an already over-decorated fir. Time will come when I will weep with the delicious memory of it all, when the ghosts of my past Christmases will hover around, fingers a-wagging as they relate how I did not appreciate it all. Wherever you are and whoever you are with, have a wonderful, wonderful time.