William Sansom writes on page twenty six of A Book of Christmas:

"one of the objects of these pages will be to investigate the past, search out the teetotums, the gilded apples, the Noah's Ark peg-tops of the old-fashioned Christmas tree; to investigate wassail and lambswool, piñatas and posadas; to look everywhere in Europe for survivals of the old horned god, like the Welsh Mari Lwyd; to note how very pagan a Christian festival can be—always remembering that such disinterrments are only part of the luxury of knowledge, and that the proper Christian gifts to the world of love and gentleness outweigh any coincidental heritage of idolatry.”

Brandon here, with an invitation.

Tis the season to consider the reasons. I wonder if there aren’t several observations out there in web-land sprung anew from the most recent, rapidly passing transition through the dark.

Positions occur to me, as an admittedly over-used starting point, through which I would like to suggest we might find a way together into the sophisticating depths the dark suggests. For instance, I feel disinclined to minimize “such disinterrments” as “only part of the luxury of knowledge” and feel obligated to speak for this shovel work as yielding some of the finest fruits of the knowledge accretion process. It seems by turns an essential observance in a secular Christianizing culture that “the proper Christian gifts to the world [are] love and gentleness” and a colossally farcical disservice to frame this in terms of “outweigh[ing a] heritage” reduced to “idolatry” and dismissed as “coincidental”.

I don’t mean to suggest this is a new objection to an argument that carries great weight in and of itself, or that the author is particularly worthy of attention, only that digging around in Christmas and thoughts thereabout seems more fruitful for a far-flung familiars in the time of fruitcake than it may prove after.

Anyone interested in sharing some thoughts in lieu of nog?