Soon will be near to us once more

I’ve always loved Christmas. We still kit out the conservatory out as Santa’s Grotto, despite the children being in their twenties and not here much. The memories of the family Christmas when I was young and those when our kids were are equally magical. Sadly, there are only a few cousins left from the cast of thousands who’d be at my Grannie’s in the fifties. All the previous two generations are gone. “Someday soon we all will be together, If the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” Those were the words of “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” as heard through the war. Born as it finished, I saw those who’d hoped for it ten years later and that’s precisely what they were doing. Frank Sinatra took out the ‘muddling through’ and made it “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” That’s what Christmas is to me, the star of wonder. O God, lead us to thy perfect light when our time is through. I pray the darkness will not overcome it.