Christmas at home

I was glad to have Tuesday without commitments to do some last minute shopping. This meant Rachel and I could drive over to Bristol to visit Amanda, exchange Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve, and to catch up with her, as I haven't seen her since summer, when she was last in hospital. She fights against growing disability with impressive courage and creativeness, working with her carers on baking and jam-making. All the presents she'd prepared for the rest of the family she'd made herself. Such admirable spirit!

When Amanda's carer arrived, we headed for home, a late lunch, and then for me, completing a sermon for Midnight Mass. Owain arrived for supper and a relaxed evening before I drove out to Tongwynlais on deserted roads, to celebrate for a congregation of three dozen. Last time I was here, I was hearing Phil one of my students, preach. I also did locum duties here during the last interregnum, three years ago. How time flies!

It was good to be back in a familiar place with familiar faces, and hear the scriptures read by people with South Wales accents not too dissimilar from my own. For me, this is a profound part of what it means to celebrate Christmas at home.

It was strange to awaken relatively late this morning, without the excited voices of children discovering their gifts from Santa, but this year Jasmine is with her father. Rachel, Owain, Clare and I went to the Eucharist at Catherine's, and enjoyed a good carol sing together, before preparing Christmas dinner together - well, my share was preparing the sprouts and washing lots of pans and dishes. Owain took the lead, making sauce based on a reduction of red wine with plum jam to accompany roast duck for a change, plus venison sausages with all the usual family veggie delights including nut roast, followed by glorious Christmas pudding.

Before the sun set, we quit the table and walked around Llandaff Fields. One of my presents from last year was a boxed set of 'Superman' movie videos, from Rachel. Sadly, I've never had enough idle time to consider spending three hours watching them, but with no children to feed, play with or put to bed, we could all sit down and watch the first of the series together. It was good fun, and especially for Rachel a reminder of a childhood family outing to watch this particular movie - not that any of us could actually recall the first fifteen minutes of the film describing Superman's origins on planet Krypton.

It's a superbly crafted movie, but it's funny how differently one interprets it, some thirty five years later on, at the time of year when we sing. 'He came down to earth from heaven...' Superman is a heroic saviour figure, powerful, honourable, decent, upholding western democracy against criminal enemies, yet vulnerable (like Samson) to those who know the secret of his weakness. Sometimes he suffers, it's true, but it's never terminal. It's an intriguing fugue on the incarnation/redemption theme, proving how many thoughtful creatives simply don't get the great mystery of the incarnation.