Has Christmas gone crackers?
Its that time of year again! Mile upon mile of fairy lights blazening the night sky, stuffed turkey dinners with toothless Aunt Maude, expectant stockings at the end of the bed awaiting the latest gucci-must-have-gadgets, Christmas cards to Mrs Wottsaname name next door who barely exchanges words with us. What’s the point of Christmas? Has the truth been lost somewhere along the way?

On the positive side it does provide the opportunity to slow down for a brief second in the whirlwind of every day existence, a chance to connect with another soul just because our paths cross - need there be any other reason?

But is collective ‘bon homie’ the real reason we send that Christmas card or is it more because we feel obliged to? I can just hear my dear old mum saying now, “they send us one every year, wouldn’t it be awful if we didn’t send one back?” I wonder how many millions of Christmas stamps are licked more through guilt than true heart felt feeling?

Excuse me if I may sound a little cynical but it appears to me that Christmas has really lost its true meaning. It has become a casualty of the feeding frenzy created by the corporate carnivores. In the UK alone we spend £10 billion on Christmas every year. That’s enough money to supply water FOR LIFE to the unfortunate one billion on our planet who have none. Whatever happened to Jesus’s message of “share and share alike”?

It is not our fault of course. We were weaned into Christmas very early on. How the devil are the young and innocent expected to say “no” to that sticky chocolate finger? How can we refuse the endless array of cheap chinese toys? How could we be expected to see through the big red costume and fluffy white beard to what’s really underneath?

But what began in the cradle needn’t end with the grave. We still have a choice. We ALWAYS have a choice. We can say “NO!!!”. We could choose instead a little ‘cold turkey’ and alight the gravy train at the next stop - the town called “Truth”.

It does of course require some courage - and not the one to be found at the bottom of a pint glass! It requires us to be in the place of the observer of ourselves and to question with core splitting honesty “exactly why am I sending that Christmas card to Mrs Wottsaname next door?” Why do I continue to poison my body with addictive foods designed only to expand the burgeoning waistlines of the corporate fat cats? Why do I continue to sit sofa-bound, glued to yester year films when the magical mosaic of mother nature is continually updating outside?

The famous bard Shakespeare once said “be true to yourself and it must follow as night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man”. So this year, why not give to one another the gift of truth? Let truth be the victor for once not the perennial casualty.

Why not be honest about how we feel not just to others but most importantly to ourselves? Then maybe, just maybe, we can begin to burst the illusionary Christmas party balloon and discover our true way of celebrating - that which serves who we really are.

So this year, the Openhand Christmas gift to you all is to wish you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help us God!

Chris.