Quote and a Question
“Is an exciting new improved Christmas every year really necessary? Is it in the spirit of the Solstice? The human heart hankers after stability and tradition. The feel and atmosphere of Christmases past, the anticipation of those to come, and the magic presence of Christmas now should all blend and blur, to give the distraught soul something to hang on to in a year bedeviled by new improved machines, soaps, music, spectator sports and recipes, many of which will prove to be dull, destructive, and sometimes downright damnable.” Elizabeth Zimmermann
What is the core, the kernel, the essence of the season for you?
I think for me it’s a somewhat schitzophrenic season! On the one hand, being a Christian, it’s the celebration of Christ’s birth, about the hope that He brings. I try very hard to keep that in sight but you know, this awful, secondary Jingle Tills Celebration has an awful habit of jumping all over my peaceful, hopeful festival and spoiling it with "we need to buy gifts for him, him, them, her, her kids, and do we buy for them?" and what should be about joy becomes about stress and I hate it. I would dearly love to get all sanctamonious and say they can all go away cos they aren’t Christians so why are they celebrating a festival from my faith? But then, Christmas was dumped unceremoniously on top of an existing Pagan festival so there is no moral high ground to take is there! I do think that rampant consumerism is a nasty sort of religion though, one that seems to have brought the "developed" world to it’s knees in it’s drive to have bigger, better, flashier at any cost and I do wish that smaller and simpler would come back into fashion some time soon (along with children’s clothes that cover their middles properly….)
This year, in an attempt to make it a more family time I’ve declared it to be a home baked Christmas and those simple acts of creation have brought some sanity back to the home although I fear they may also bring inches to the middle, I never seem to fancy low fat, healthy recipes for some reason 
Ah well, never trust a skinny chef and all that!
