Well, we got to the beach today - only had a short walk along the actual beach though as it was pretty wet underfoot where the tide had been really high and was only just retreating. To our surprise, the car park was crammed with cars - then we noticed burning braziers on the beach, and found out that this was the annual New Year's Day swim. We had missed it but all I can say is, rather them than me! I imagine that water was pretty darn cold!
I was thinking of the high spots of Christmas today - not just ours, but other people's Christmases too. As we were driving home on Christmas Eve I think it was, we passed the new neighbours at the smallholding just across the river. They had bought some sheep and just as I was driving by I noticed the wife was with the sheep in a pen in their yard, and her husband was taking a photo. Both were grinning like loons and obviously SO happy. When I spoke to them recently, he said he wished they had made this move 20 years ago!
Then there was saddest thing I read, a little before Christmas, on a FB post. It was a couple who had returned the birthday gift of a My Little Pony which had been given to their 4 year old daughter as it was unsuitable. (They were English, btw). They did NOT believe in magic, and she wasn't allowed to see any Disney movies, have stories with magic in them, and My Little Ponies were tainted by magic - apparently. No, their child was going to grow up in the world of reality, and they had already told her that Father Christmas did not exist. She is just 4 years old, for heaven's sake. How despicable to force your beliefs on a wee child and in a way, remove that element that makes childhood special - deleting the "imagination button" and that special magical atmosphere that Christmas brings.
I can remember my children writing wish lists to Father Christmas and sending them up the chimney. I used to show my children "Fairy Forests" of moss, and we had a "fairy glen" in the corner of the paddock. We read fairy stories, and folk stories connected with the superstitions of yester year. The girls knew some of the poems for the Cicely Mary Baker Flower Fairies books off by heart (as did I). They loved Enid Blyton's fairy stories, and when they got older, the works of Tolkien, and Philip Pullman. They discovered Mythology from many countries, and I considered it part of their education - the girls went on to read Archaeology and Anthropology and you can't escape mythology in either of those subjects.
I can remember Danny coming home from school, aged 5, and telling his older sisters that Father Christmas was just someone dressed up. Tam was 9 then and Gabs 7, and they still believed in Father Christmas. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach that their innocent belief should have been destroyed.
So part of me grieves for this little girl, robbed of her innocent hopes and beliefs by her narrow-minded parents. I hope she still discovers the magic in this world of ours anyway . . .
