Category: december days

Daily Decoration: angels, trumpet, faith

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Two silver-coloured angels made from cut, stamped and folded sheet metal. The nearer one has a trumpet and the other has a banner with the word FAITH

These two angels came from a set of six. This was relatively early in my practice of distributing Christmas decorations around my loved ones: two angels went to my mother, two to my father, and I kept the last two. Three of them carried banners, and three of them other objects. A trumpet, as you see here, and I think perhaps the other two had a star and a bell. The banners all had different words. I forget what the other two said. JOY? LOVE? PEACE? Fairly standard Christmassy sentiments, anyway. FAITH seemed a bit incongruous, somehow. Which sounds odd, given that it would go very happily with HOPE and LOVE, but I bet you know what I mean.

It took me, a lifelong churchgoer, a very long time to feel even halfway comfortable with the idea of faith. I think I used to imagine it as a sort of holy willpower: you can do anything if you have enough faith! With the (usually unspoken) corollary: if it isn’t happening, you clearly don’t have enough faith. I also used to get it mixed up with belief, which didn’t help: if it isn’t happening, you clearly aren’t believing the right things hard enough. (What ‘it’ was, that might or might not have been happening, I’m not sure. I don’t think I made any practical test of this, just grumped about it.)

It helped when somebody expressed it as the relationship you have with the Divine. It helped when somebody linked it with trust, truth, troth. I wrote out all my complicated feelings about my ancestors converting from other religions and denominations to the Church of England, and then tripped over John 15:16. You did not choose me, but I chose you. I read Nicholas Lash’s book on the Creed and felt happier about the believing thing too. In the last couple of years someone pointed out that my continuing stubbornly to show up (to church, to pray, generally) even when, mid-depression, nothing seemed to be going on at all, might be what faith looked like. It doesn’t feel like that, but maybe that’s the point.

I’m not sure that I ever chose faith (see lifelong churchgoer, above). Sometimes I think it was chosen for me (ibid). Sometimes I think that it chose me. Maybe none of that’s relevant. Anyway, I keep on showing up.

Daily Decoration: Alice

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A textile Christmas tree decoration representing Lewis Carroll's Alice

Alice came, appropriately enough, from the British Library. So did quite a few of the permanent inhabitants of Wonderland. I picked them up week by week: the Mock Turtle, the Cheshire Cat, the flamingo, the Knave of Hearts…

I looked at her just now and the part of my brain that’s always quoting something said, ‘Very Tenniel.’ I first came across Alice in Ballet Shoes, in the excruciatingly embarrassing sequence where Pauline gets the part instead of a friend who’s really better qualified and probably needs the money more, and then gets a severe case of swelled head… I didn’t read Alice in Wonderland until a few years later.

Actually, I’m not sure that this Alice is very Tenniel; she seems rather calm and unruffled, as if she’s never fallen down a rabbithole in her life. I’m very fond of book!Alice, largely because of how logical and observant she is, and the way she approaches confusing and frightening situations: wanders around and asks questions. And occasionally cries. It’s as good a philosophy as any.

Daily Decoration: wonky-horned unicorn

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Enamelled metal ornament representing a unicorn seated among red flowers. The tip of its horn is slightly bent.

I bought this unicorn in 2008. We were absolutely skint, so it came from a charity shop. We were absolutely skint, so the tree it hung from was in fact a ficus plant that someone had given us as a housewarming present. We were living in Guildford, which is not a great place to be skint. It is, however, a good place to find nice things in charity shops. This is because everybody else has plenty of disposable income, and can buy nice things, and then send their previous nice things to the charity shop. Things like unicorns. And, because of the wonky horn, it was a reasonable price, and I bought it along with some boring green baubles and some beaded icicles and some other things that I might share in the next couple of weeks. It must have been a bit heavy for the ficus. Even on sturdy firs and spruces it has to go quite far back towards the trunk.

Of all the things to be pedantic about (and I am pedantic about many things, though since it isn’t ually very edifying I try to keep most of them to myself) mythical beasts are probably one of the silliest. Unicorns do not actually exist, so it is really a bit pointless to complain that people always get the tails wrong. But they do. A unicorn isn’t just a horse with a horn on its forehead! It ought to have a beard, and a solid tail with a tuft. This one’s a proper unicorn. And I don’t care if its horn’s a bit wonky.

Daily Decoration: in-tray trees

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Two tiny felt cut-outs, one cream and one dark green, in the shape of Christmas trees, standing in a transparent plastic tray

These little felt trees live in the in-tray on my desk at the office. My fabulous ex-colleague Hazel gave them to me several years ago, and they’ve been there ever since. I’m not sure that I really count them as decorations, since they’re there all the time, but they seem rather poignant today.

Given recent developments, it’s quite possible that I won’t see any of my colleagues in the flesh again before Christmas, and, much as I’m usually reluctant to get deep into Office Christmas (I simply cannot be that cheerful for that long) this isn’t a normal year. Actually it’s all a bit sad – almost more so than last year, when all of us were online all the time.

I missed the last great shutdown because I was busy moving house at the time: my week’s leave folded seamlessly into Lockdown I. Today I thought briefly about taking these trees home. I don’t think it would really make any difference, though.

Daily Decoration: Ljubljana dragon

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Laser-cut plywood dragon set in a circle, with text 'Ljubljana' at the base

I only found out when someone mentioned it on Twitter a few hours ago, that today’s the anniversary of Patrick Leigh Fermor setting out on his epic foot journey to Constantinople. It’s rather pleasing, because I was thinking about PLF a lot when I was planning the journey on which I picked up this dragon.

My Grand Tour in 2018 was rather less epic than PLF’s journey. I only had three weeks to get it done in, though my budget was probably quite a bit more generous, courtesy of the Betty Trask Award. Going by train, I got some impressive mileage in. I didn’t get invited to stay in any castles, though I did end up having dinner with a coloratura soprano in Vienna.

But that’s by the by.

I loved Ljubljana, in much the same way as I loved Bratislava: they’re both capital cities that haven’t been capitals all that long; they’re easy to walk around, and hard to get lost in. Bratislava had the better food, and a cathedral with a wonderful eighteenth century St Martin in a pellisse. And trams.

But Ljubljana has dragons. They guard one of the famous bridges; there’s a legend about a dragon and Jason, of Argonauts fame. And actually there was some very good cake, too. And bendybuses. And a funicular.

I went to Ljubljana because two separate friends, both far more experienced than me in the art of adventure, recommended it. That was how I planned a lot of the journey: recommendations from people who knew what they were doing; places I’d always wanted to go to; things that looked good in Europe By Rail. A bit of wiggle room for emergencies, or just in case I wanted to change my mind. (I did, a couple of times.)

But all the time I was planning it I had to get around a voice in my head that was trying to tell me that this was the last fun thing, before… Before what? Well, before Brexit, before whatever horrors the next US election were going to inflict upon the world, before I lost my nerve.

And had Patrick Leigh Fermor, tramping across Europe and seeing the rise of Nazism on the ground, got into my head? Had Patrick Leigh Fermor, looking back on the adventures of his youth from the bitter experience of sixty-something (and a world war), managed to scare me, betwixt and between at the age of thirty-two, out of going? No: he was half the reason I wanted to go at all.

I can’t say that I saw a global pandemic coming. Sometimes the voice in my head tells me that it told me so.

But it wasn’t the last fun thing. It wasn’t even the last continental European holiday: we got to Lille the next year. It wasn’t the last public transport adventure: even this September we took the sleeper to Penzance and worked our way back up the West Country on buses and trains.

The Grand Tour wasn’t the last fun thing. And actually, by the end of the trip it was feeling less like the end of something and more like the beginning of something. I’d learned a lot about travelling on my own, about not actually having to speak every language, about when to rewrite a plan and how absolutely anywhere looks better after you’ve had a shower. And I’d learned that very often it is just as simple as deciding that you want to go somewhere, and going there. Here be dragons. Let’s go and see them.

If you want to read about my Grand Tour adventures in more detail, perhaps excessive detail, start here.

Daily Decoration: Dutch windmill

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China windmill, white with blue sails and details, hanging by a blue ribbon from a brass knob

Finishing off the vaguely Dutch theme of the last few days with an actual windmill from Amsterdam. Amsterdam was a day trip: we were staying in Leiden and it was our first foreign holiday together since our honeymoon. (Really? Six years? But then there really wasn’t much money to spare for most of them.)

Most of our recent foreign holidays have been to the Low Countries. There’s a good reason for that: we only started gathering some disposable income once we’d moved to Cambridgeshire, because that was where one of the jobs was. Add to that my reluctance to fly (it’s not that I’m never flying again, but I’m going to need a very good reason indeed), a shared interest in cycling, and the proximity of the Harwich ferry and the Eurostar, and it becomes obvious that we’d visit Leiden, then Ghent, then Lille.

(Solo trips are another matter. More on that tomorrow. And we are still holding out for that rail tour alongside the Rhine.)

I wasn’t massively keen on Amsterdam. My experience throughout my travels (again, more on that tomorrow, probably) has been that I prefer the smaller cities. But I did like the Netherlands more generally, and I’d like to go back sometime when All This is under control. In the meantime, I’m exploring my own flat land.

Blue sky reflected in a straight, calm, river, with reeds and a grassy artificial dike on the right bank and overhead railway power lines on the left bank
Cambridgeshire.

Daily Decoration: St Nicholas

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Playmobil figures of an angel with a wide crinoline skirt and floor-length gold wings, and a man with a white beard and red bishop's mitre and robes

I’ve shared these two before, but it is St Nicholas’ day. That isn’t really a thing in my tradition, except insofar as to grump (quietly) about how everyone else is getting Father Christmas wrong: but he’s just familiar enough in his red and white, and just saintly enough with his crook and mitre, to belong there. Maybe I’ll get the angel an umbrella. The nativity scene and the Magi will show up later.

Of course, this inevitably raises questions about how to render other seasonal saints in Playmobil. Saint Lucia, with candles on her head and her eyes on a plate? There are various monks out there, who’d do as St John of the Cross, and young men who could be St John the Evangelist or St Stephen. Perhaps we’d better stop there. Collecting Playmobil babies to play the Holy Innocents would feel distinctly, if illogically, off: why should I baulk at one plastic martyrdom but not another? (But couldn’t I get an Arius for St Nick to clobber?)

Usually these two would be up on top of the piano, but I don’t trust the cat (currently attacking a scrap of red and white brushed cotton plaid) with them, so they’re sheltering on the bookcase. They don’t really have a story. I just wanted to buy a Playmobil St Nicholas.

Daily Decoration: blue and white and gold house

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Flat ceramic Christmas tree decoration representing a tall house with Dutch gables, with doors and windows picked out in blue and gilt

This one came from an art shop in Cambridge. I think I’d just gone in to look at the art, with the intention of buying a card or two as the price of admission, but I saw this and I couldn’t not buy it. There was a whole street’s worth of houses, but I couldn’t really justify buying more than one. I bought this one. I love blue-and-white china (there’s more to come in this series), and the addition of gold makes it really lovely.

Of course, I was so terrified of breaking it that I wrapped it up very securely and tucked it away in my handbag and had forgotten all about it by the time I got home. I’m not sure that it actually made it onto the tree that year; if it did, it was at the very last minute.

I try to go and look at something once a week. (Blame Julia Cameron, probably.) Sometimes I manage it; sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it’s an exhibition; sometimes it’s a show; sometimes it’s a concert or a film. Sometimes, as here, it’s a shop that sells particularly beautiful things. Sometimes it isn’t really looking at something: it’s trying something new (an interesting looking cake, a different kind of tea, a book of poetry). Often I bring something away with me. Usually it’s something that can be stuck in my diary: a flyer, a bookmark. Sometimes it’s something that will allow me to explore the subject further: a book. Sometimes it’s something more substantial, something that’s part of the the something itself. Even if it’s tiny.

Daily Decoration: German roundels

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Three laser-cut plywood Christmas tree decorations, with (left to right) a nativity scene, a church with an onion dome, and an angel kneeling on a shooting star), each in a circle with stars around the edge

These three roundels (I don’t think I can really call them baubles when they’re flat) are part of a set that was a Christmas present from my aunt several years ago. This is the aunt who lives in Germany, near Frankfurt, and in 2007 I spent a couple of months living with her and her family while I was trying to work out what to do with my life.

I don’t remember any of the churches in and around Frankfurt looking much like the one in the middle there. That’s a style that I associate more with Bavaria and Austria. When I was out there I attended a charismatic church led by one of my aunt’s colleagues. It was a bit of an eye-opener after a a childhood in rural Anglicanism and three years at the university chapel. Somebody had a prophetic image for me. I’d never had one of those before, and I didn’t really know what to do about it, though in retrospect I don’t think they were far off.

One of the questions associated with moving to a new place is: where will I go to church? Pretty soon after I came back from Germany, I moved to Guildford. I was miserable for a lot of the time that I lived in Guildford, but the one thing I never regretted was ending up at Holy Trinity for the Advent Carol Service (I’d been aiming for the cathedral, but had drastically misjudged the time it would have taken to walk there). It was just the church I needed: it had an inclusive approach, intelligent preaching, a reassuring stability, and, in its excellent but non-auditioned choir, a way that I could contribute even when my confidence was absolutely shot and I was hanging on by a thread. We kept going there even after we moved to Woking and I was quite a bit saner.

Later, we moved to Cambridge – Chesterton, to be precise. I thought that St Andrew’s was our parish church. In fact, it wasn’t, but it was the church I needed. Not that I immediately realised this. We happened to land on a family service, which was not really our thing. A couple of months later, we hit a sung eucharist and found that there was indeed a choir that we could join. I went to family services quite a bit more when we were settled there, though. I ended up contributing more than I’d expected, too: by the time we moved on, I was a PCC member, leader of the twenties and thirties study group, and occasional reader and intercessor, as well as a choir member.

I mentioned last year that moving house in a pandemic had its advantages. One of those was the fact that church went online, so I could hang on at St Andrew’s for far longer than would have been feasible in other times. I even got involved in leading informal worship (I’d imagine all that’s still on Youtube) and was still doing that up until this summer. In theory, the great onlining could also have meant that I could get a taste of other churches via their Youtube channels, though in fact I didn’t do any particular church shopping that way. When the churches opened up again after the long 2020 closure I started going to Ely Cathedral. I’m still feeling like a complete newbie (pandemic time may have something to do with this) but I’m starting to get to know people and get involved in things.

I always do seem to end up at the church I need, even if it’s not immediately obvious why that’s the case. It’s almost as if someone has a better idea than I do…

As for working out what to do with my life: well, it all worked out, but not because of any particular effort or thought on my part, and it took rather longer than two months. I’m hoping to get back to Germany next year.

Daily Decoration: distance pigs

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Six small ceramic pigs with loops on their backs for hanging, lined up under a lamp

I can’t be in two places at once. Nor can anybody else. Even at Christmas. It is for this reason that in the early years of this century I started buying identical pairs of decorations, one for the tree at my father’s house and one for the tree at my mother’s.

As I and my brothers have acquired partners, who also have families and trees, the number of different places where we all could be has necessarily multiplied. So, therefore, has the number of decorations. This year there are six little pigs, one for our tree and the rest for other people’s. Just because I liked the little pigs.

This year I’ve seen more of my extended family than I’d expected, though not as much as I’d have liked. There has been some lovely news in one part of the family and some awful news in another part. A little china pig isn’t much, to say, ‘thinking of you, missing you, lots of love, maybe I’ll be with you next Christmas’. But it’s something.