The build up to Christmas, the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child, has been a little more interactive this year. A week ago we welcomed a new little baby boy into our family and as I look at this beautiful, helpless bundle it has really made me think long and hard about the audacious story told every year. More of that later…
Meeting up with Bright Light Bright Light Spring 2025
My preparations for Christmas started last spring when I wrote the new Christmas single to promote the ‘Everyone Deserves A Christmas’ Hamper Charity. I know that sounds early, but I’ve learnt that a last minute Christmas rush to get the record recorded doesn’t do anything to create a relaxed Christmas celebration.
Writing a song entitled ‘Shine Your Light’ just as the clocks ‘sprang’ forward and lighter evenings might seem odd but I think the real reason for writing the new carol was at the time the news coming out from all parts of the world seemed a little dark. I wanted the Christmas Good News story to shine in spring, summer and autumn as well.
Recording Mumbles A Cappella as the nights drew in.
Having put the record together and scheduled the release on all of the streaming sites, preparations were made to launch the record at Swansea Market at the end of November. Christmas in the Market has become a highlight for me in the start of the Festive period. It’s taken on a life of it’s own and it always great to meet up with the DVLA Ladies Choir or ‘CharityChoirWales’ as they are known on Instagram, for a festive sing song.
November and Christmas in Swansea Market.
One of the real joys this year was recording a Christmas Special for the BBC. Quite often my career has meant hours in the car travelling across the country to some venue or studio. This production was much closer to home, in fact just a walk away. When the BBC producer Jonathan Thomas emailed me suggesting a Christmas Special from All Saints in Mumbles I was delighted.
I had recently recorded the Mumbles A Cappella Choir for the ‘Shine Your light’ record and knowing they were in preparations for their annual Christmas concert at the Brangwyn Hall I thought it might be a good idea to see if they were free. Once their Musical Director Phil Orrin said yes I knew we would have some great choir contributions and that with their help the congregational carols would also sound pretty good too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002mvsh
With the addition of soloists Karl Morgan and Kirstie Roberts and spoken word poet Naomi Hutchison the first week of December really put me in the Christmas spirit. The show itself goes out on BBC Radio Wales next Tuesday at 4pm and also on Christmas Day at 6am but in this world of radio on demand the show is already on the BBC Sounds app and will be until the end of the month.
Singing with Mumbles A Capella at the Brangwyn Hall.
Since then I’ve been to any number of Christmas dinners, I’ve sung ‘Shine Your Light’ at 2 school concerts, and on Wednesday gate crashed the Mumbles A Cappella Christmas concert at the Brangwyn to sing it again with the choir and a string quartet. On Sunday I’ll be performing with the choir at Oystermouth Castle (weather permitting). Next week will round things off with the ‘Everyone Deserves’ Hamper Packing and Delivery. In many ways this has been the most Christmassy build up to Christmas in a long time.
But there is one thing that has really made me stop and think once again about the real Christmas story…I’ve had a new grandson.
One of the carols I have sung most often this month has been ‘Away In A Manger’. We know it so well. It’s a simple children’s carol.
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head.
The stars in the sky looked down where He lay,
The little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay
In a world where our Christmas images seem to merge so that the Grinch, Shepherds, Santa, Wise Men and Scrooge all fight for equal attention it can be difficult to actually think back to the original story. I mean the claim being made is that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, the word made flesh!!!
I think the trouble is we have heard the words so often we don’t hear the meaning of the words anymore. The claim made in the Gospel of John that…
‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’
I’ve got a number of grandchildren ranging from the ages of 4 to 6. In 6 years I’ve probably put on a bit of extra weight, the hair I have is whiter and I sleep more after lunch than I used to. In that same time these little humans have become real people with voices and personalities and demands. Even with the benefit of all of our portable technology to record and capture each life moment its hard to remember how they were at the start.
My new grandson is perfect…and perfectly helpless. He needs his parents to feed him and change him and cuddle him when he cries. To be honest there isn’t much he can do at the moment.
Now the Christmas story tells me that God, an infinite being, decided that the only way he could really communicate with us was to become one of us. He then decided that he wouldn’t simply appear as a fully formed cartoon hero like Superman but that he would go through the whole process to fully understand the human condition. Let’s be honest here, the whole thing sounds …well…ludicrous doesn’t it?
Then I start to think about my new little grandson. I was talking to his other Grandfather as we watched one of our other shared grandsons play football last Saturday morning. ‘Bamps’ as he’s called used to be a Science teacher. On a physical practical level he was saying how he couldn’t understand how every child playing football that morning started off as just one single cell. That in that single cell was contained all of the information needed to grow and develop into a human baby. He said for every child born it’s like a miracle.
The Christmas Story also goes on to claim that not only did God become a little baby he also chose for that baby to be born amongst the mess and smells of a bunch of farm animals in a country occupied by the Romans, arguably one of the most cruel regimes ever to build an empire. I have to say if I was the Almighty I would have taken much greater care of my son…and that’s the audacity of the story.
Some people think that the story of Santa and the North Pole and delivering Christmas presents all around the world in one night could be said to be a little far fetched but having held my helpless grandson in my arms this past week it’s really making me think hard about the claims made in the real Christmas Story.
Merry Christmas x