Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Well, it is that season once again, where a new year is about to drag us another year closer to our demise!

I must say that I'm not enjoying this week between Christmas and New Year, I rarely do, it seems such a terrible time of excess and boredom, unable to get anything done, or anything planned because everyone else is doing the same as you, sitting at home watching the television, going out drinking or stuffing their faces with the remains of the turkey or the last mince pies. Although I still enjoy the old spiced beef, nothing quite like it!

It seems that these 'holidays' lose their meaning once Christmas day is gone, and although it is nice to have a bit of a break, it seems overdone to take weeks off.

Although saying that, in medieval Europe Christmas was an affair that lasted months and usually ran into Lent and Easter, which itself ran on for weeks, exasperating the landowners who could not make the peasants work on a holy day, in fact, were forbidden to do so. They had to convince the Church to pair back their definition of a holy day so as to allow the land to be ploughed efficiently and harvested fully.

I don't know if weeks of feasting is what I would really want, although it does sound good! It is one of those evils lies put about by the haters of Christendom, that the peasants of the medieval world never had time off, or did anything but suffer and starve, when in fact, most of the calender was devoted to various holy days and the feasts of saints. We are all familiar with Lent, but fewer would be familiar with Advent before Christmas, or the myriad of feast days once celebrated by the Church, it is a wonder anything got done in that time, although much was, perhaps with a bit of a hangover?

We are told we have never had a life so leisurely then ours! Another bald lie!

Anyway, may God bless you in the new year!