It’s Alright
works in progress
In a normal year, I think I prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, just like the day before going away on holiday is more enjoyable than the fraught reality of travelling. The same is true today, even though Christmas feels weird this year.
Christmas Eve is also when I make my mince pies, just as my mum did when I was growing up (and she still does). The only change this year is in the quantity made as I don’t have to account for my sister scarfing them by the handful when we visit: no visits.
There is something about Christmas that I enjoy more as I grow older. It isn’t a TV thing, as I rarely watch ‘live’ TV any more, and it isn’t a religious or spiritual thing in the sense of feeling connected to something ‘greater’ that’s external to family and company. It isn’t even a ‘festive’ thing. I think, in normal years, it has to do with marking the passing of another year, a pulse point in the rhythm of life. This year it has, for me, more rather than less significance just because it has been such an odd year. There’s a sense of marking the day in a ‘so far so good’ way, and reflecting on the many for whom that does not apply.
Reading that back over, I realise it could be construed as ‘I’m alright, Jack’, and that’s not what I mean to convey. I mean it only in the sense of giving thanks for what we have, irrespective of to whom or what those thanks are offered.
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I think I’ve probably finished with the 1970 music posts for the year: there are a lot of LPs I haven’t covered, but none that excite me much, even one by very-distant cousin Eric Burdon, who’s name my dad didn’t like mentioned as he didn’t approve. For those of you who use Spotify, I’ve put together a playlist of stuff I’ve enjoyed that was either released in 1970 or in the UK charts then (they’re the only criteria). It’s very eclectic, from jazz to country and all points in between and either side. It’s also seven and a half hours long just now, though I reserve the right to tweak it. I haven’t attempted to sequence it so best just to put it on shuffle. If you don’t like the track that’s playing, you might like the next one. A link is embedded below, but if it doesn’t work try this one.
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Music: not a Christmas song in any traditional sense, nor in the circumstances of its writing, yet it seems to fit for this weird year. And we’ve passed the winter solstice now, so the northern hemisphere days are getting longer and brighter, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
The Beatles : Here Comes The Sun
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