Sir, – In his poem A Christmas Childhood, Patrick Kavanagh describes a magical and mysterious Christmas when he was “six Christmases of age”.
The poem is filled with nostalgia for things of the past and his memories come to us through Christian imagery from the story of the birth of Jesus.
Through the eyes of the child, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary, “in silver the wonder of a Christmas townland, the winking glitter of a frosty dawn”.
Perhaps the poem is worth reading or rereading in these disruptive times. While current restrictions cause difficulty and upset, maybe there is something to be said for a scaled-down, stripped-back Christmas.
Simplicity, after all, is just the ability to be satisfied with oneself and be thankful for what we have.
And regardless of how many Christmases of age we are, someday we might all look back and realise that the small things were in fact the big things in our lives. – Yours, etc,
JOHN McHUGH,
Principal,
Ardscoil Rís,
Dublin 9.