This year, many people will have been deprived of their usual way of celebrating Christmas. Whether this is normally ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ for you or the most stressful time, it is time that we can choose to mark in some way. Why bother? Because otherwise time has a tendency to slip by. Seasonal rituals help us to feel more connected to the natural world, to the cycle of the year, to have a sense of where we are, and that we are. A phrase that is really resonating for me at the moment is Tara Brach’s description of anchors in meditation as ‘a way to know that you are here’. I love that, and rituals have a similar role, they are a way to step into the present. Some rituals are ones that we create and that have personal significance and meaning for us. Other traditional rituals, through the practice, connect us to all those that have marked occasions in this way throughout history, to those carrying out the same practices now and to those who will carry forward the tradition in the future. While a ritual is generally a practice – something to ‘do’, it invites ‘being’, slowing down and reflection. For Jeanette Winterson
Ritual is a way of altering time. By which I mean a way of pausing the endless intrusion of busy life… Ritual is time cut out of time. Done right it has profound psychological effects.
Jeanette Winterson, Christmas Days (2016)
I spent a lot of time this year thinking about traditions and what I do, and even came up with a list two pages long! From sending cards, to hanging a wreath on the door or lighting candles, to the food prepared, places visited at this time of year. I realised that the things I enjoy most are the quiet rituals I practice on my own, and I realised the one thing I always relish on Christmas Day is to escape the busy-ness and sneak off to a corner with a book. There was less need for sneaking of course this year, as the UK increases strictures in lockdown, and so it was a quiet Christmas, but one that equally had many quiet gifts. The whole of the winter holiday for me is really about snuggling up with a book and is something that I really look forward to. A book I revisited this year was Jeanette Winterson’s Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days. The stories range from heart-warming to disturbingly dark (eg in ‘The Mistletoe Bride’), and include a nativity retelling from the point of view of the humble donkey. My favourite is ‘Spirit of Christmas’, where the world has finally tired of its own consumerism and people write to Santa asking him to come and take all the gifts away, how much better they feel when it’s all gone!
Why are the real things, the important things, so easily mislaid underneath the things that hardly matter at all?
‘Spirit of Christmas’
The stories strip away the paraphernalia of Christmas and get to what matters most, but there is no sugar-coating and this reaches beyond truisms – there’s real grief, sorrow and healing here too.
Interspersed with Winterson’s personal stories, traditions, and recipes, there’s lots here to entertain and to reflect on. This is a book I’ll be saving and picking up again next year.
