Well that was Christmas.
Time with family and friends.
Cheer, laughter and fun.
We have enjoyed company, playing on the Wii, and generally being with the family having fun.
I have deliberately taken a week away from blogging to enjoy the family time more and the result of doing that means I have a lot of thoughts.

Midnight mass at the cathedral was a special time and, for me, a great and unique way to place Jesus Christ right at the centre of the festival.

Starting with Jesus causes me to ask …’that was Christmas, so what now!?’ Now that the festival is over is it time to pack Jesus off back into the other Bible stories and get on again with our lives; secretly sighing some relief that the busyness of the season has now passed.

I can’t help but think that if that is the case for us then we have failed in our celebration of Christmas, if not in the actual act of celebrating then in the meaning of Christmas itself. There must be more!

For the first time in a while over this Christmas period there were a number of younger children present in our festivities – babies and toddlers. I had forgotten how totally distracting and consuming a baby can be. Babies demanding attention so much that they require a lifestyle change; being the centre of attention not just for the parents but more or less for all of the people present.

As an aside it reminded me of a while ago when a couple I know well said that the addition of a baby to their life, due in a few months, was not going to be disruptive or change anything. I did not disagree with them, but instead I kinda smiled smugly to myself with the words ‘you just wait’ in my mind, remembering that I felt just the same, along with many prospective parents some 15 years ago, before the birth of our first child. No matter how hard you try, the arrival of a child into a family IS disruptive and EVERYTHING does change. In short, life is transformed. There is no going back. I am sure I am not alone as a parent in struggling to think was life was like before children – the way they not only take up space in the home, but the way they take up mind space with worry, concern and delight as well!

The arrival of Jesus as a baby was a disruptive experience. The arrival of Jesus caused life transformations to occur 2000 years ago, and that same arrival has been demanding and causing the same transformation every day since.

If we move away from the Christmas with the thought that the Christ child will have no effect on our lives, then I think we have missed out on something of the meaning of this event. The arrival of Jesus, the incarnation, means things are now different. I have come away from this Christmas realising that to try and pretend nothing has changed is possibly the greatest missed opportunity of all time.