The Annual Christmas Letter

This Christmas we have heard from many friends around the country. One of the letters begins ‘‘I realise that I have always started with an apology for this type of letter. I think its time I stopped apologising – it’s this or nothing!' Its true that they have become a bit of a joke, often full of intimate details about a family’s activities during the previous year. One newspaper columnist asks people to send him extracts from their letters, and then publishes an annual book of them, which is a bit cruel.

Mostly our’s have all been very interesting. People have had amazing holidays around the world. Special domestic activities have involved lots of energy : ‘in the garden the major project has been the completion of the green roof on top of the garage, a joy in spring and summer when it comes into flower’. Alternatively the DIY skills of some of our friends have put us to shame and seemingly exhuasted them. Other skills too – another friend and his wife went to Osaka, Japan where he was singing with the Huddersfield Choral Society, performing Britten’s War Requiem the evening before Hiroshima Day.

Parents show enormous pride in their children, and in some detail extol their achievements, which is natural enough. And then for people of our generation there is great delight in grandchildren, all of whom appear to be both beautiful and brilliant (like our’s!). It’s the time of the year when one marvels at the continuity of life and older people like we are, look back with gratitude and forward in hope.

And then there are the signs of age and its effect on people who have been so active and caring for others until recent years. One friend ‘tries to get a short walk most days, but is increasingly frail’ and at 85 is facing a cataract operation. Others have multiple health problems and several find retirement a problem ‘it is now well into its stride: though as promised, it’s not at all easy’. There’s a bit of anger around too. Someone who goes to church is appalled at “worship” offered to an ‘Allmatey God. We feel we don’t belong to the real world at all… like Orthadox Jews offered ham sandwiches in the synagogue’.

One recently retired friend has been attending a Quaker meeting. He writes ‘one Sunday a two year-old sang “Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder how you are”. It was exquisitely beautiful. Some things cease when you retire, but not the wondering’.

B.R.