User300415

I've just flipped the switch ; perhaps not for the last time but there won't be the same magic again. The lights that have twinkled for the past month now fall silent. They have faithfully waved encouragement to passing travellers during all of these darkest days and nights of Winter. Those strangers must now make their way to Springtime without such companions.

Statues and figurines who proudly stood guard over our hopes and joys have now been stood down. Without their solemn duty they seem bereft, diminished ; even a little irrelevant.

Tomorrow is the start of the fist full working week of the new year. The lights and trinkets won't get stored until next weekend but their wonder has evaporated for another year. And so it is every year with all inanimate things, and possessions and the material objects we covet. And perhaps that is the greatest gift of Christmas and the story of that child. It reminds us that, in the end, these things pass and we are only left with our family or friends. Once a year we remember to cherish the really important matters of life.

And oh, by 3 o'clock tomorrow I'll be totally absorbed once again by the trivia of work. But sometimes during the year I'll pause and briefly remember; maybe even on the sunniest Summer afternoon. And that is what makes Christmas special. That is what makes us human.

The lights stop. A new year. I lift my last glass of festive wine. Best wishes to all of you and your hopes for 2014.