Fourth of Advent Year C
December 2010
Christmas is upon us.
At Christmas the focus is on family.
Everybody tries to be at home for Christmas.
After the first flush of welcomes, the joy of being together again and the exciting exchange of gifts, old habits of conduct, old arguments, well worn paths of disagreement begin to emerge and spoil the occasion.
Avoiding this is extremely difficult. It takes a supreme effort on everyone’s part especially for parents.
It involves parents avoiding patterns of behaviour towards each other which have become embedded. It involves avoiding searching questions and disapproval, voiced or silent, regarding lifestyles and behaviour of children.
It requires children (young and old) to ignore and forget, for the time being at least, old resentments and nastiness’s towards each other.
We have just a few days left to think about, and hopefully talk about, these things.
Hopefully there will be some change this Christmas.
Otherwise I will look back with regret and guilt on how I spoiled our family Christmas together.