“‘Twas the night before Christmas,

when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there...

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the windows I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash...

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St.Nick...

(and, near the end)...

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight,

‘Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!’”

Isn’t that nice?

And before all that, I was just about to give you eleven good reasons to be grumpy at Christmas. There’s a new book out written by Stuart Prebble, the creator of the TV series Grumpy Old Men.

In it he lists anything and everything he loathes about the festive season – nativity plays, pantos, presents, parties, shopping, eating, buying a Christmas tree, as well as a turkey costing £65!

Some of the things he dislikes about Christmas seem a bit stretched, but some ring true such as ‘Round-Robin Letters’. I do actually enjoy hearing other people’s news, but it did strike me this year, more than ever, that everybody else seems to be having such a perfect life! Stuart Prebble says, “Wouldn’t it be great to get one that said: ‘Another rubbish year (he uses a different word to ‘rubbish’), we’re getting divorced, the kids are unemployed, on drugs, have turned out to be cross-dressers and have tattoos”.

Or what about his turkey scenario? Prebble asks, “Why, if it’s so delicious do we only eat turkey on at Christmas? Well, it really isn’t that good. It tastes like blotting paper.”

There’s a lot of sense in some of the things he says, but he is trying to be amusing in the hope of selling a book! However if we are perfectly honest with ourselves, there are elements of the whole Christmas thing which some of us dread with almost a type of phobia.

I searched in Google the other day for ‘Fear of Christmas’ and I got some interesting results! These included an article from Vanity Fair Magazine which said, “There’s a peculiar fear of Christmas that seems to get stronger every year, as if it’s the season that dare not speak its name.”

Some weeks ago, I was just about to mention ‘Christmas’ to someone when I was told, “Oh, don’t mention the ‘C’ word!”

Well, it’s all nearly over!... Isn’t that a terrible thing to say on Christmas Eve?

What on earth have we done to Christmas?

And then, suddenly, my mind was jarred and I was transported back to a time when I first heard those words, “’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

In my Primary School, many years ago, we dramatised that poem and we even appeared on television, which, when I think about it, must have been a fairly new concept in those days. I was the lead reindeer!

The poem was originally called ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ and it was published anonymously in a newspaper in New York’s ‘Sentinel’ on December 23^rd, 1823. It was actually written by a New York clergyman named Clement Clarke Moore who spun together Christmas memories for his children, and it soon became better known by its opening line, “’Twas the night before Christmas.”

One reason Moore’s poem has endured is that it is a joy to read aloud. Beginning in hushed suspense, the poem builds to a dramatic crescendo as the rollicking verses usher in the mysterious midnight visitor. It is a tale of anticipation and wonder.

The truth is that it is far removed from the stench and filth of a young 14 year old girl giving painful birth to baby boy in a cattle stall, 2000 years ago.

Yet the New Testament never dwells too much on the physical aspects of Christ’s birth and death.

The magic and wonder and mystery of his birth and life and death and resurrection, all leave us breathless.

Recently pupils from Glencraig Integrated Primary School sang that wonderful song, “He is Immanuel” at their carol service. The chorus goes,“Halleluiah, hear the song of heaven in this place, halleluiah, for the love of God has come to us today, Heaven’s greatest gift would come, he is Immanuel”

I don’t how this is. I can’t really explain it. But I know it is magical and it is truly wonderful.

Perhaps Clement Clarke Moore wasn’t purporting to expose any great theological truth when he wrote his poem, yet he has done something which I feel sure God would approve of, and that no esoteric theologian isn’t really able to do, and that is to capture the magic of Christmas; something, perhaps within all our child-like hearts we can hold a glimpse of what Christmas is truly all about with all its anticipation and wonder.