Christmas is a time when even the secular world rediscovers the importance of ritual. Every family has special Christmas customs. They help navigate time, memory and change. Most are simple and happy, but some can be kind of counter-rituals – ways in which we have become controlled by the past or by expectations which are now burdensome or need to be re-energised or purified.
To live is to change, but perhaps there is a little part of all of us that is controlled by an idealism about how magical and perfect Christmas should be. This could derive equally from a childhood where either it was or was not perfect, or a strange admixture of the two. Like all longings, properly traced to source, it can yield rich spiritual gifts.
