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Archive: December 2010
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Archive: December 2010
I ruined Christmas!
By Robbie Thompson
Throughout my short but eventful life, clumsiness and calamity seem to have followed me around. There have been countless times that I have made a monumental boob of myself either in public or in private. Just to enlighten you about me when I was younger; I was not a lean child. I wintered well. A lot of my public embarrassment could be directly attributed by the fact that I was, what they call, rotund.
Whether it was ripping my trousers in the crotch at school for everyone to see or smashing the brand new basketball in the gym, because I thought I’d be like Michael Jordan and hang from it, my rather heavy-set figure landed me in considerable amounts of mess.
Christmas 2003 is a prime example. Gary Jules was number 1 with his boring and not- at- all Christmassy song ‘Mad World’, England were the rugby world champions and I was sat in my parents’ house, gorging on Christmas munchies.
Having grown tired of the late night TV my brother suggested we switched it off. I said I would turn the decorations off – (my parents were keen beans when it came to switching these off to stop us burning the house down, even though I have never heard of anyone burning their house down with Christmas decorations).
Anyway, I gingerly shuffled behind the Christmas tree and stretched to reach the plug only for my rotund, turkey-filled posterior to shove the Christmas tree towards the floor. The crash was loud, the mess was vast and my brother’s laughter began. It was like a direct missile strike on Santa’s Grotto minus the dead elves!
Baubles littered the floor, the angel was lying broken in two and glitter covered the floor making it look like I’d violently murdered a pixie!
I’m not sure whether any of you have ever been in a similar position. It is petrifying! Particularly as my dad is a disciplinarian, with the traditional slipper in one hand, finger wagging, “You did what?”
After the initial feeling that I had ruined Christmas had slightly subsided, I began the unenviable task of trying to rectify my horrendous muck up. I sat there for hour upon hour, panicked expression on my face, my brother still laughing hysterically, trying to sort out the calamitous mess I had created.
The next day, I came clean, confessed and told my parents what had happened. The lounge was a mess, the tree still looked like it had been chewed up and spat out and baubles were still strewn across the room. It wasn’t hard to see that something had happened.
But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter.
At the risk of sounding cheesier than an X-factor runner up, trees and baubles weren’t the most important thing that Christmas. We had based our joy and happiness at Christmas around people and not perfection.
Too often I think we try to have a ‘perfect’ Christmas. We have the perfect tree and the perfect decorations. Perfectly cooked Christmas dinner in perfect time. It seems that if we don’t tick every box then we have not ‘done’ Christmas.
When we look back at the birth of Jesus we don’t see the perfection. Mary and Joseph after being thoroughly underprepared and not booking ahead, found themselves holed up in a barn with the animals.
They didn’t have the nicest place, the tidiest room or the most organised of winter breaks but it was irrelevant. They were a family. They basked in the joy of that time amongst all the chaos and confusion. They entertained guests, probably played scrabble or whatever the biblical equivalent was and received presents (even though they were impractical. Perfume for a baby? I would have probably given vouchers…)
But you get the point.
Jesus could have been born in a swanky hotel, with mints on the pillows and a Corby trouser press and it would have been perfect for the King he was and is, but instead, he chose to be born as one of us, in the hullaballoo of human life and into a loving family, warts and all.
So how about this Christmas, we put people above perfection. By all means, decorate the house, spray fake snow on the windows and scrape the walls to pieces with a massive tree. But if it goes wrong, and if it doesn’t all come together and all the boxes aren’t ticked then let’s not worry. Celebrate the birth of Christ with the people you love. Surely that is perfection enough.
About the author
Robbie loves Christmas, especially the Mariah Carey song 'All I want for Christmas' that he's been humming away for the past 6 weeks. He' works for Soul Survivor and has recently got engaged. Woo!
Soul Survivor is a Christian charity that puts on events for young people. Our registered charity no. is 1080720. We are also a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales. Our company registered number is 03991111, which is nice. Thanks for caring.
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