It’s time to take down the decorations. Or is it? Which is Twelfth night or Twelfth day? And why does it matter? Who brings the bad luck? Is it the elves? Or Jesus? I like to think of myself as a rational, sophisticated urban being, but I was brought up in the countryside so I am naturally superstitious and so frantically go round the house to make sure all the evergreen has been put out. And, to cover all bases, over the last few years I have started celebrating Twelfth Night in my own small way by heating up some cider, adding some fruit and playing some medievally music. Once the music is on – usually something by the Folger Quartet - I heat up some ale with spices and get to work taking down the tree and all the decorations. The kids are all depressed at the ending of the greatest time of the year (for them), but I love it - not because I’m dying to rush down to Tesco to by some fucking stupid chocolate eggs, but simply due to the lovely yet sad passing of time.
The next morning I go out to check on the tree. Today it is bright and cold, proper winter weather. There’s a lovely thin sheen of ice on the wildlife pond. Quite rare for the time of year these days. People leave their tree out in the street to be recycled, but for the last few years we’ve cut ours up to be used in the woodburner in the back garden. Sometimes we chopping up the tree in the morning before school. The boys help me. They like cutting and destroying. Afterwards they do mad dances around it like HDMA goblins. I’m slowly trying to get them to see that this dark, seemingly boring time, is just as precious as the bright, baubling, loud fortnight over Christmas. We need both of them. Their mum often struggles in winter. She tells me of her grandfather, in Ireland, who would sit quietly at Christmas while everyone was celebrating. He’d be waiting for the light to turn. Now my wife does this, so that while many find it hard in January she can already feel the light shifting and Spring somewhere along the road.
Christianity nicked the big celebrations from our pagan forebears, but once Christmas is all over they pretty much said “you’re on your own” for the rest of the month, though when I lived in Venezuela I became aware that Little Christmas, on 6th January, was the main event.
After they’d gone to school I pile up the small logs and ponder over the lessons of the Christmas time. Life goes too fast. All the money has gone. But I sense that the local gods of the front hedge and the bike shed and the cracked pavement and the dog poo bin are all looking on truly and want to help us get through this period.
You could call it an epiphany, I suppose.