Advent: 5 December 2022
Greetings,
We’ve reached the letter F in our Advent Calendar A to Z. And F is for… Family. After all, what is the Christmas story but the growing of a family, the birth of Mary’s first child, who would be brought up by her and Joseph? And in God’s taking human flesh, Christians believe that all people can be welcomed into God’s family. Moreover, it is a time of year when families come together, work and studies laid aside, to eat copious amounts of food, exchange gifts of varying acceptability, and find activities all can enjoy without too much disharmony, such as going to see a panto, or taking a brisk walk.
My digital box of quotations has a somewhat jaundiced view of Christmas and the family. Here is Michael Tolliver, one of the delightful cast of characters who populate a series of novels by Armistead Maupin, in the first of the Tales of the City:
‘Christmas is a conspiracy to make single people feel lonely.’
And it’s true, isn’t it, that unless you have somehow secured a partnership, you may wonder which home will accommodate you for the season. As Evelyn Waugh writes in his novel set in the Second World War Unconditional Surrender:
A forlorn relation was part of the furniture of Christmas in most English homes.
Maupin himself called his memoir Logical Family, a family of friendships rather than biology. But solitude may be preferable: I well remember a fine single Christian women, a retired teacher, who was part of the church where I worked in Elgin saying to me, “I’ve been invited to various houses for Christmas dinner but as I’d much rather eat the food I like and watch something nice on television, I’m just staying at home.” I still remember the twinkle in her eye as she said it.
Family can be problematic in other ways. For some it has been the source of trauma – and part of my work is to listen to students and others who explore this. For others, family is more of a mild but persistent irritation. As the strapline for the 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums puts it:
Family isn’t a word… it’s a sentence.
Finally, a silly joke about family:
Little girl: Pills, please.
Chemist: Pills, my dear?
Little girl: Yes, please.
Chemist: Anti-bilious?
Little Girl: No, uncle’s bilious.
Perhaps we shouldn’t leave these thoughts of family without a further word about friendship. Last Christmas I read Travels with a Donkey in Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson, who said this lovely thing:
In this world of imperfection we gladly welcome even partial intimacies. And if we find but one to whom we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God.
And here is a painting of the Holy Family, by Cameron Smith
Yours,
Donald.