There’s a lot of new stuff around our houses at Christmas. New clothes, new toys, new smells, new novelty foodstuffs, and yet somehow, a couple of days later the place contrives to feel weary and old and hungover.
So I’ve been doing the laundry. Yesterday, I did six loads of washing, clean, dried, folded and put away. No ironing, though. I’m not Superman.
I changed the beds, cleared the detritus from the boys’ rooms, emptied the bins and hoovered though. I saved the house. Maybe I am Superman…
The house certainly needed saving. Like most of our homes it was covered with a layer of Christmas so thick you had to peel it off. And now it’s clean again, the tree looks less like it’s suffering from seasonal-affective disorder and the whole place feels fresh. Which, for an anally-retentive tidiness obsessive is a positively life-changing experience.
Now, we tend to think of New Year as the moment for renewal. We make resolutions, we promise to be better, healthier, kinder, to work harder, eat less butter, somehow to save ourselves. But yesterday made me think again about that.
The Christmas stories in the bible cover many of the things that feature in our own seasonal experiences: family, anxiety dreams, presents, terrible journeys and unexpected guests. But what pops up in all of them is the idea that Jesus, that tiny little scrap wrapped in rags in a cowshed, is here to save us.
And being saved isn’t just about one thing stopping. It’s about a better thing starting: we’re saved from something and into something – from weariness into rest, from bitterness into love, from death into life.
So I reckon Christmas is the moment for the fresh start. New Year is just an accident of the calendar. Because in among all the sheer weight of traffic – presents, food, drink, all the joy of catching up with loved ones – and all the aggravation of catching up with loved ones – Christmas offers the chance to save and be saved, by the odd gentle word, by the kindness of a gift, by the generosity of a meal and a bottle of wine shared.
And after we’re saved, we can tidy up.
I’m afraid that when it comes down to it, I’ll probably tidy up before we’re saved.