Today is Christmas Eve. Last weekend, Matthew and I attended A Celtic Christmas, a celebration of the Celtic contribution to the Christmas celebration. There were carols, jigs, bagpipes, an epic poem, and dancers. During the second half of the evening, the contemporary Scottish poem was read. I've thought about it all week, because I believe it truly encapsulates the true meaning of Christmas. It reads, in an English translation, as follows:
It would not have been like that
Yon Christmas Card with its gold-lined edge
It's sweetie pinks and bonnie blues
It was hard winter for a start, and a hard journey's end
Locked doors and hard-nosed faces,
"Nae room here, awa doon the road!"
No capers under the mistletoe
No robins. No merry ringin of
Christmas bells (or cash registers)
Just darkness, and straw and childbirth
And the beasts, soft cattle on heavy feet
Great steamin flanks and wet muzzles,
Owls in the rafters, and the rattle of rats on the bare floor
What did she make of it all?
Fear she felt, no doubt, and pain.
But that fella with the fine clothes and outlandish gifts
What did she make of it?
Those hill men thrustin in at the door
With the cold of the heights on their breath
Crooks in their hands and lambs in their underarms
Did she imagine the road he was to take?
Or did she, like any mother, kiss his soft hands and feet
Taking adoration as his due? Lord, grant that it was so!
-The Christmas Card, EM Buchanan
