Christmas is now done and dusted. All the stress, the preparation, the expense, the food and drink, makes one wonder: is it all worth it?
Of course, bringing families together is the most important aspect (and yes, that includes the problematic relatives) but sometimes I think, couldn’t it be done much easier over lashings of fish and chips or a huge pot of curry?
Personally, I love Christmas for the gift of making people generally more pleasant.
But I am also hugely conscious of the many families with empty chairs around their dinner tables or those who are homeless, alone or who find Christmas traumatic.
As the old saying goes, it’s not important what is under the Christmas tree but those gathered around it. Ergo, I am grateful for the blessings of a close-knit family and friends.
So to answer my own question: Christmas is worth making an effort.
Mind you, despite having finally mastered how to make and serve up the perfect Brussels sprouts, if I never see another one again it would be too soon.
Talking about things I never want to see again are books or opuses on the Troubles.
Having lived through it, I want to put that tragically depressing and unsettling period behind.
The Kelly bookshelves heave with tomes of remembrances, narratives and, at times, pure fiction penned by past protagonists and players.
I remember reading the very differing recollections by two senior civil servants from the 1970/80s and was incredulous that they were both writing about the same period.
Thankfully, for the first time in decades, my annual Christmas book haul didn’t include a single book on the north.
Looking through the titles making publication over the past few years, it would seem as if everyone from policemen to politicians, journalists to clergy, interlocutors to interlopers, were players in peace-making.
How some made so much out of so little is beyond this writer.
Obviously some did play a role. A few imagined they did. It appears there were so many peace-makers, it’s a wonder there was anyone left to be a protagonist.
There isn’t much left to tell.
As you read The Irish News and other local titles, many pages are ladened with the release of the state papers both from the UK and Ireland.
Whilst it’s informative sometimes to read what was in the minds of actual political, government, military and paramilitary figures at that time, in other ways Northern Ireland is still too raw, too scarred and too bitter to cope with parts of what is revealed.
In fact, many of the players are still on the pitch. It may be wiser to revert to a standard 40-year rule on the affairs of the north.
Though in fairness, much of what finds its way into the public domain amounts to little more than gossip, personal opinion, party political tittle-tattle and petty indiscretions judiciously leaked by flattered protagonists during (often) boozy lunches which were then noted and recalled by NIO or Department of Foreign Affairs officials. Some less accurate than others.
One former Irish Ambassador to the UK apparently broke protocol and wrote a memo on his conversation with the late Queen Elizabeth, citing that she was not too impressed with the silly marching season.
Rather bizarrely, he then asked for the note not to be circulated too widely.
Unfortunately for the diplomat, the golden rule was broken because once something is written down, it exists and what exists can be discovered. (NB to readers: The Times columnist Matthew Parris has complied a hilarious collection of undiplomatic remarks from the despatches of departing British ambassadors, called Parting Shots.)
So, as 2024 ends and whilst tucking into a wee haggis with a dram of whiskey, I am glued to the cracking read about how Elton John and Graham Taylor saved Watford.
Much more interesting than who was or was not talking to Gerry Adams. Happy New Year!