Joy, loss and giving: A letter from Christmas present

Stephen Price

A December child like the good man himself (if we ignore the theft of pagan tradition), I spent much of my childhood pining for the final month of the year to arrive.

Behind the childhood desire for toys, the films, the 70s and 80s pop and sparkle, there was always a strange calling towards the cold, the snow, the dark nights and the elemental gloom of it all.

Throughout December, my mum, a Presbyterian minister, would have me up-front and centre performing on the violin at our family chapel, sneakily using her position to ensure the month’s winter playlist looked just as she wished.

See Amid the Winter Snow, O Little Town of Bethlehem, O Come O Come Emanuel.. and a few upbeat numbers just to balance things out.

As the years have gone by, my playlist, too, has grown, but the theme remains the same: wallowing!

From Joni Mitchell’s River to Gaudete and Winter from Steeleye Span to Coventry Carol and O Holy Night (sung by choirs not oversinging Mariah Carey types), my playlist has grown to a volume that a month can barely maintain.

There’s also the wistful poetry of Christmas Goose by Irene Thomas, and the Ballad of Mari Lwyd from Vernon Watkins, or Christina Rossetti’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ which then became the stupendously sad and gothic ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ – deep and certain joy in the darkness of Christmas and winter time.

A month of poetry, art, tradition – the best of it, the very best – and oh so deliciously bleak. A Welsh melancholic’s dream.

This year is the first without both my parents, my father now lies with my mother in the mountainside behind Llanelly Church.

I’d initially planned to let this Christmas pass me by, to look the other way and skip this one.

For me, an eternal child, the joy was in being around my elders.

The family all together, the decorations up, tagging along to carol services.. writing the cards.. watching the things we’d all watched countless times before.

And as time progressed, switching from being a major recipient of gifting, to gaining much more joy from being the giver of gifts.

Plot Twist

As it turns out though, by mid November, the desire to spoil my nephew rose to the surface. His first passport. A Furby. A Tamagotchi.. plans for Build a Bear..

And then, come late November, the cards, bought and collected over years prior, came out. Good wishes to impart to loved ones still here.

And then, on to December.. my nan’s old Welsh blanket box was opened.. the old decorations with new additions added to the fold in the shape of a candle arch, a squat nutcracker, a vintage Dam troll dressed for the North Pole, and best of all, a Peruvian retablo nativity.

The ability to give will never be taken from us, however little we have, even if it means our focus goes sideways, downwards, or to charities instead.

“When in doubt, give.”

But if I’ve learnt anything in life, it really is the people, and the animals around the table that matter. And the things you come to desire the most, if you’re lucky enough to grow to a ripe old age, are the things you already had and lost.

To have it all back, but to pay attention this time, to appreciate fully, and to count every single blessing of those ordinary days you thought would go on forever…

“Bleeding out your days in the river of time”

Joy to the World? Not for me.

The Bleak Midwinter, time and time again.

The most wonderful time of the year.