Tis the Season

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I don’t want to seem cheesy – but did I ever tell you about the day I learned the true value of Christmas? I thought I mightn’t have. 

I recall it was Christmas Eve, some year or another, I don’t remember all of the details, nor all of the setting, but the result, I remember with great fondness.

Once again, I had neglected my present buying until the very last day, Home Alone and Elf had been playing since November, so my seasonal radar was thrown off and I’d lost track of the days – after all, it’s a season, what does the actual day matter? Or so I thought. Nonetheless, Christmas is nothing if not a time to empty my wallet into various shops and inundate my family with knick-knacks and clothing they don’t really need and don’t really want, so I headed down to the shopping centre, wrapped in all manner of festive garb: garish green and brassy red adorned my jumpers and hats and scarves and gloves, as I ambled outside and towards town, Jack Frost nipping at my toes all the while.

It has to be said, one dreams of a White Christmas, yet it’s rather hard to achieve through all the grey of society, and on top of the brash bright blues and reds and golds. It could have been snowing for all I noticed.

As I swung round the corner towards the main straight, walking down a tunnel of festivities, a street engrossed by tinsel, lights, fairies, trees and more, my goal was decided: it was present time. The insurmountable goal every year was, to buy as huge, gaudy and fantastic a present as possible for as little money as possible, yet I was perpetually draining my funds, exponentially, into indistinct stores selling indistinct tat, that, naturally, I had to buy. Headphones nestled in my festively cold ears, toddling down the street like an oversized, brightly coloured penguin, swaying to Slade, engulfed by Christmas, oblivious to the world, I saw him. That man.

Sitting on the floor, in front of some frosted glass fronted store, dreary, tired, with a straggly, sooty, grey beard, just spilling over onto his worn, tatty, dark red – although it might’ve been black for all the colour it brought – and a couple of old, mittened hands, grasping a lone carton of milk. Homeless. This was my conclusion. So, inspired by the message of Band Aid and deciding to Feed the World, I chucked the man a couple of pounds, awaited his “Thank you, sir” and “Merry Christmas to you” and waded off. If you take something from this story of mine: don’t judge a book by its cover, nor a man by his beard and coat. So, off I went, into the field of festive frivolities, in search of gifts.

I returned later that night, not all too late, but, due to the season, it was nigh-on pitch black. Now carrying the added weight of large, bright bags of indistinct gifts, I was toddling slightly slower than earlier, as I passed the same spot. As I arrived at the frosted glass once more, I saw no sign of the, presumably, homeless man; inclined by festive charity and curiosity, I did a slow, static circle, looking for the old, scratty gentleman. As I got about half way through my slow, shivery circuit, I spotted the man, tottering off, slowly, but with purpose, into a dark, desolate looking alley. Now, speaking from experience, dark, desolate alleys are rarely a smart idea when it’s nigh-on pitch black, and even more rarely when one is, presumably, homeless. So, spurred on by some daft thing that we call conscience, I also made for the dark, desolate alley.

Now thrust into a far more ambiguously threatening side of December, I wandered, along this, seemingly, unending alley, before I reached, nothing. I arrived at a dead end. The man had, apparently, disappeared. There was nothing around, save for one, lone, immaculately wrapped present. The ribbon sparkled, even in the dark, and I found myself leaning towards it, pulled by childlike fixation, I picked it up. I turned over the pure green label and read the message, addressed to me; “Thank you, sir, and Merry Christmas to you!” Shocked and intrigued in equal measure, I ripped it open, and was taken aback. Overwhelmed with catharsis and joy, I removed the small, teal kaleidoscope; the very one I had clamoured for as a child, the very thing I’d asked Father Christmas for. The very one.

As I heard a tinkling of bells, I looked up, just in time, to catch a glimpse of a bright shadow moving off towards the moonlit horizon. A bright shadow of an old, antiquated sleigh, pulled not by engine, but by a natural shine, a natural magic, helmed by an old man, with a new breath of life in him, with a straggly, grand beard, just spilling over onto his worn – by a lifetime of service and altruism – suddenly brighter, red – ever so red – coat, and a couple of old, mittened hands holding the reins. As I held that kaleidoscope of my dreams up to my eye, I saw things entirely differently.

WJ