Finally, December has arrived and the run up to mas can begin in earnest.\u00a0 Obviously the shops have been tempting us with mas goodies for ages, vying for our attention in a competitive mas market.\u00a0 In a flash overnight, the \u201cSeasonal\u201d aisles and displays that were bedecked with the orange and black of Hallowe\u2019en have become all green and red with liberal sprinklings of fake snow; ugly skeletons and witches have given way to jolly old Father mas and his reindeer.\u00a0 There\u2019s no doubt about it; there is a jolliness in the mas season.\u00a0 I used to work with someone who didn\u2019t get particularly excited about it, but I\u2019ve never met a proper Dickensian Scrooge.\u00a0 Somewhere in the mas festivities, there seems to be something that appeals to most tastes.<\/p>\n
For the consumers amongst us (from the smallest children who begin to modify their behaviour in anticipation of Father mas\u2019 midnight journey, to the most senior citizen whose collection of mail-order catalogue nick-nacks rivals some small mail-order companies\u2019 stock list!) there are the gifts \u2013 mas presents are popular with everyone.\u00a0 Others take the opportunity to be givers rather than receivers; either generously giving mas presents to friends and family or helping with a charity of some sort \u2013 perhaps a homeless shelter, or Age-Concern centre, providing a mas meal for elderly neighbours who would otherwise be alone.\u00a0 The traditional mas dinner is something that has wide-ranging appeal; we may not be overly keen on Brussels-sprouts, but there\u2019s usually plenty of other stuff to satisfy our appetites.\u00a0 And don\u2019t we all look forward to mas pudding?<\/p>\n
Then, there are the office mas parties which go down a treat with young employees who are happy to indulge themselves on the company\u2019s tab.\u00a0 The radio stations all start to play the familiar mas songs, and there\u2019s the annual competition amongst recording artists to be the mas number one.\u00a0 The postmen and women bring joy to us daily with sacks bulging with mas cards, and we send our own mas greetings to family and friends all over the world.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s the special bumper edition of the Radio Times which contains all the TV and radio listings for the whole mas fortnight \u2013 children and parents drawing rings round programmes they want to watch or record; special film premieres for mas Day itself.\u00a0 For the nostalgic who like to remember years gone by, there are plenty of mas carols to sing \u2013 and if some community-minded person has organised a proper event out in the cold of a December evening, so much the better.\u00a0 We could even watch it done \u201cproperly\u201d from King\u2019s College, Cambridge, or we could pootle down to a local church at some point and reconnect with the well-known story of the little donkey on the dusty road, the starlit stable, the shepherds and the wise men; there\u2019s always something massy going on in the church at this time of year.<\/p>\n
All in all, in my experience, mas is popular with pretty much everyone.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great celebration.\u00a0 I confess that I love it myself \u2013 for nearly all the reasons above.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve completely left out of my article the main reason for the celebration.\u00a0 How ridiculous is that?\u00a0 Imagine if someone actually did that for real?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finally, December has arrived and the run up to mas can begin in earnest.\u00a0 Obviously the shops have been tempting us with mas goodies for ages, vying for our attention in a competitive mas market.\u00a0 In a flash overnight, the \u201cSeasonal\u201d aisles and displays that were bedecked with the orange and black of Hallowe\u2019en have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[40,21],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-comment","tag-christ","tag-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}