Our Women - And Christmas

Our girlfriends and wives can touch Christmas as if with a magic wand and transform it into a charmed foretaste of Heaven itself. Our sisters can do that too - but not our brothers!

If ever proof were needed of the superior skills of the fairer sex in multiple areas of human experience, one has to look no further than the yearly, joyous, exuberant, restless, gentle, shepherding and energetic impact she has upon our homes and lives during the Season of good cheer.

From the winter snows and fierce winds of early December to the garlands of green and gold upon our doors and the crimson colours of cushions when the doors are swung open, is a transformative journey that our women cheerfully undertake every Yuletide of every year.

Visitors to such a home almost at once absorb this miraculous transformation when they step in from the cold - their cares are left at the door and inside, the loving touches of tinsel, bells and red that adorn her home lift their hearts (perhaps unknown to even themselves) toward Him who left His heavenly home for planet Earth.

The Christmas tree of course has all sorts of male associations - it is the strong arm of resolute men that picks out and cuts down a suitable, coniferous branch of green and brown in a supposedly hostile wilderness of white. But once it is home, it is she who decides everything from where it should stand and greet her family and friends - to which version of symmetry in its decoration is acceptable to her elevated sense of festive taste! The children and her man scurry around looking very busy indeed - but it is she who directs them, often with no more than a nod of her head or a deft deflection of her eyes. 

Sometimes, she will let them pretend that it is they who are responsible for the tree that is changing before their very eyes from a wild, windswept reminder of winter - to a resplendent, glowing, grand spectacle of cheer! But this is a sophisticated game of pretence she plays - exposed again and again by cries of, “what do you think, Mom?” or “is that okay darling?”!

Who would ever entrust to the men of a household (whether husband, brother or child) the making of meals in the run up to Christmas or the baking of fragrant biscuits and cakes that flood the home with wave after wave of culinary fragrance and desire? Family, visitors and friends would turn and flee our home for example, if I were to undertake to conjure the Christmas cake or roast the Christmas turkey! 

An old Christmas card is supposed to exist somewhere which tells a most woeful tale of a man who fell asleep on Christmas Eve and dreamt a most horrible dream. He dreamed that Christ had not come - there were no festive colours and lights and stars; no peace on earth, only strife; no Christmas gifts all tied up and placed under a sparkling tree.  He attends a funeral for someone he dearly loved and stands forlorn at the grave - with no hope of eternal life.

And then, he wakes from his dream to the glorious sounds of Christmas church bells ringing and summoning people to sing and worship and rejoice. A great chorus of “Merry Christmas” and beaming faces greet him as he stumbles out of bed. Steaming Christmas pudding awaits him and his woman places her tender lips upon his and they are locked in a very special Christmas embrace. Peace and hope and life eternal are all real again and all available, for all of mankind - and he leaps with joy uncontrollable.

A much lesser (but still very distressing) nightmare would be of men and only men, managing the weeks and days leading up to Christmas! The streamers would be completely out of place, the tree a mangled mess, the gifts bearing the tell tale signs of incompetent wrapping skills, the turkey not roasting, but burning (perhaps even burning bright!) in a smoking oven - and the holly making the ivy rage in a very untidy apology of a wreath!

During the miraculous weeks leading up to Christmas, we look with awe, with wonder, with reverence, upon the beautiful, humble face of that greatest of all women - Mary, the mother of Jesus. 

I feel certain that St. Mary would encourage us to remember with gratitude the women in our lives who are directly and unequivocally responsible every Christmas, for creating order out of chaos and beauty out of the bleak banality of winter.