GETTING OVER THE CHRISTMAS

It’s the Irish in me again, I’m afraid. You see, the phrase “getting over the Christmas” is, or at least was in my young days, a regular, even routine, greeting in the last days of December. 
It usually went like this, “ah, hello Tom, How did you get over the Christmas?” To which Tom would reply in time honoured fashion, “it was quiet, wasn’t it?” Irish contacts tell me that Wren Boys about which I wrote recently are a thing of the past, so  it may be that this modest little bit of repartee is also on the way out. A pity really, because those of us who indulged in the greeting, were well aware how much of a ritual it was, and usually had a good laugh at ourselves.But the question is, how did I in fact get over The Christmas this time around? 

Several of my relatives had written beforehand to assure me that they understood well how my Christmas for 2016 could not be “the same” because not only was I no longer safely ensconced in the warmth of a parish community, but one of my closest friends and daily companions had had a stroke, and that they felt for me. God bless them. 

 
They could have added that my recurring tummy problems for which a scan is due in the New Year would also spoil things a bit. It did. The irritation my deafness causes others in this Rest Home didn’t exactly help either. 

“How did I get over the Christmas?” A friend of many Christmases tells me that I’m asking the wrong question, concerning myself too much with creature comforts and even my Ego. Do you know something, she may have a point!

At 76 years of age I should surely be grown up enough to see beyond treating Christmas as one long letter to Santa. But she may have a point and more shame to me if so. She went on, "Are you writing your blog as part of your mission as a priest or is it that you just like an audience?" Ah, don’t be cruel love, I can’t be that selfish, can I? Can I?

For all that it stung I know full well that I could do with more friends like her. People who may not manage the comment boxes Google provides, but still think enough of me to discuss this blog with me in the privacy of email. My tummy may not be at its best these days, but I can always do with food for thought. PLEASE.