Advent calendar

[hnpcc]

So on Christmas morn we opened the last window to reveal:



"Once in royal David's city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby,
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little Child."

I don't think I'd realised that the author of the poem/carol had capitalised every reference to Christ before, from Baby to Child. I thought I'd go with an almost traditional nativity for the last window - partly because it is tradition, and partly because this is the window of the Salvo's op shop so it seemed appropriate to have at least the last day be at least semi-referring to the current reasoning behind the holiday! (There's a nice piece on ObWi, essentially focusing on why celebrating Christmas is UnAmerican, and on the whole Old Gods Do New Jobs thing if anyone's interested.)

I love how the shepherds are in two minds - there's a look of "a baby! Aww..." but it's mingled with "um, how are we supposed to feed the sheep and cattle now that you've put him in the manger?" The sheep looks like it's thinking "nope, still pretty sure it's not a grass... hey I can cross my eyes!" The baby is looking like one of the largest newborn's I've ever seen (poor Mary) and in that beautiful moment where he's asleep and his parents can catch a moment too - probably why they're not in the picture, actually.

It's funny really when you think about it - in some respects the whole nativity celebrates what is one of the most ordinary and every day miracles of life. I mean we as a species have 23 chromosome pairs, all of which need to divide perfectly and be copied, transcribed and translated with as few errors as possible. If you look at just mitosis and everything that can go wrong - well it always amazes me that anyone gets born at all, let alone that we as a species are as successful as we are. And it's not just us - it's every eukaryotic organism (OK, close to) that does this. Part of the raging explosion of life in a vast sea of darkness. Incredible.

And the human side - no matter where we end up, we all started off as a baby. Not all in a manger, and not all on an equal footing either physically and financially - but all equally as helpless, equally as dependent on our parents or other adults. Whether we die as prophet or tyrant, in war or in peace - we all start out like this. Human, and almost indistinguishable from the other similarly-aged humans around us, even with the variation in skin/eye/hair (if you have it) colours. (OK, that could just be me, but I do find that newborns all look very similar!!)

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating - peace on earth and goodwill to everyone (as always, but - to semi-quote Susan Cooper - this is the time in which we think on such things) and hope you all have a lovely day.

Just to end on a different note - ever wondered what Santa looks like the morning after? I'm guessing it's like this:



"Santa's glad that it's all over,
After flying o'er all the earth;
Can't wait to park the sleigh at home,
Reindeer and Elves wanting some mirth:
Santa's post-Christmas party,
Job is done, now we dance,
ABBA on stereo, beer on tap!"

This is from a local kitchen design place, and it's reminding me a lot of this. The carol is actually "Angels from the Realms of Glory", except for the middle bit where I think I might be inadvertently mixing it up with another Christmas carol. I'm blaming Dean, who has decided that Offspring is Christmas music. *sigh* Better than "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" though. Small mercies!

Have a Happy Christmas and may everyone stay sane, especially those who choose to wade through the Boxing Day sales!

Oh and I'll tell you who won Andre's raffle when they put the results up. I ended up with one ticket after all that. It turns out you can spend $50 on salad items, particularly when you combine them with weekly stuff you've run out of!

Comments

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Nice ending to the advent calendar, and I've often thought the same with regard to the unlikelihood of anyone actually getting born with all the right numbers of arms, legs, etc.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for this: brightened my advent considerably.

A merry festive season to you and yours. :)

[vestalvagrant.livejournal.com]

I've checked LJ tonight especially to see the last window of the advent calendar!

It amazes me when I look at my kids and think of the minute chance of that exact child being born. How have we been so lucky to get the best possible pairing of chromosomes both times?

Merry Christmas and thanks for the advent laughs.