The main item on the shopping list yesterday as Joshua and I headed into Clifton was a new Jeremy Corbyn, Strong & Stable, mug for the Mrs to replace the one Joshua had smashed, in an early sign of his sound gut political instinct. That mission was accomplished. Jeremy Corbyn is already making me poorer and the Sinn Fein/IRA loving old bastard is not even in power yet.
I bought a few stocking fillers for others and a few £4 CDs for myself but the main object I sought was an Advent calendar for Joshua. It may come as a terrible shock to the snowflake generation including my Godless Islington dwelling daughter Olaf, but the word Advent is Latin and means “The coming”. And the coming we refer to is the coming of Jesus. It is a countdown to Christmas day.
And so the Mrs and I would like to start Joshua associating what happens in December with being more than just presents and lots of food. We would like him to know the story of the birth of Christ. Is that so utterly unreasonable?
When I was a boy if we did not create home made advent calendars we would be given ones by our Grandparents that related to the Christmas tale. Kings, Shepherds, Angels, a baby in a manger and all that sort of thing. Behind each window was a picture. Surely such simple calendars exist today?
I am sure they do, but not in Clifton, a swamp of godless elitist liberals, the Islington of the South West. I found a calendar with a different organic fairtrade tea behind each window. There were numerous calendars masking chocolate with images on the front designed not to offend folks of religions other than the one folks like Olaf regard it as fashionable to attack or deride. That is to say the calendars had no Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Kings, Angels or Shepherds.
Folks across this land will celebrate Advent as an excuse for an extra penis shaped chocolate every day without any idea of what the Advent really means. In the same way they will celebrate Christmas or “happy holidays” with an orgy of consumerism but with no idea of why they are celebrating at all. And any attempt to remind them of why we celebrate is laughed off as the ramblings of someone looking back to an irrational old world or an offensive gesture towards those of other faiths.
We battle on in this old fashioned household with our ways from the old world, a world that has existed for 2000 years and was alive and kicking just half a century ago but is now under attack as never before.