Like wartime, this pandemic has brought out the best and the worst of humankind. Some of this has been on very public display, but much has taken place in private settings. So far, the most stressful aspect of my 40-year nursing career has been caring for dying patients in the first wave. My colleagues and I had to provide the intimacy and comfort that would be usually afforded to us by loved ones as we approach death.
The smaller, simpler celebrations that this country now faces are a true gift to us all, and should be recognised as such. Think what we could achieve globally if we moved towards a simpler lifestyle, more in accordance with nature. Could we slow or even reverse the pathway we are currently hurtling down, towards our own extinction?
Sadly, I am well qualified to commend the merits of simpler celebrations at this time of year: our beloved son Luke died on Christmas Day in 2006. (A bolt from the blue: sudden cardiac death.) Yet I can now find joy on Christmas Day, as did the doomed boys who came out of their trenches to play football in France in 1914.
As we gather round the fireside on Friday, my husband, my father and I will be reflecting on the momentous events of last week, when I had the privilege to begin vaccinating my own father against Covid-19. For me, this was a real live 0.3ml-sized Christmas miracle courtesy of Pfizer and BioNTech.
Kerry Lawrence
Stoney Stanton, Leicestershire
• I must take exception to those who say Christmas is cancelled (‘Christmas cancelled’: what the papers say as UK Covid bubbles burst, 20 December). What utter nonsense! While being conscious of those who have lost trade and, in some cases, jobs, a lockdown may, and hopefully will, encourage us to think about the true message of Christmas and why the giving of gifts came to be associated with this day.
Christmas is a reminder to many people around the world of God’s greatest gift, Jesus, who was born in poverty and in an occupied country. Jesus’s transformative message of love brought light into a dark world, and still has the potential to do so.
Even in our cities there are many lonely people, so what’s wrong with giving them a phone call if we can’t actually visit them? And charities working both at home and abroad have lost a lot of money this year, so why not send them at least some of the money that we would otherwise have spent? If we are taxpayers, we can also “gift aid” our donations at no additional cost to ourselves. Christmas only needs to be cancelled if we choose it to be.
John Wainwright
Potters Bar, Hertfordshire
• By coincidence I have just arrived at chapter 31 of Alison Weir’s excellent book on Henry VIII: King and Court. I quote: “Because the plague was still rampant in London, Henry did not observe the usual Yuletide festivities at the end of 1525, but spent what became known as the ‘still Christmas’ quietly and fearfully at Eltham with very few courtiers in attendance; no one was allowed to ‘come thither but such as were appointed by name’”. The Tudor equivalent of tier 4?
David Anderson
Birmingham
• I’m dining alone on Christmas Day (Letters, 22 December), but plan to take my dinner on a long walk in the North Wessex Downs. A couple of butternut, stilton, leek, walnut and chilli pasties, to be made on Christmas Eve, will be in my rucksack, along with a flask of strong coffee and a camera. I know a good spot, atop a bronze age burial chamber.
Annie Bullen
Andover, Hampshire
• As we put up our decorations each year, one very important item is our “Guardian angel”. Some years ago, the outline of a little angel was printed in the Guardian with the suggestion that it could be cut out, mounted on card and put up with Christmas decorations. Well, I did just that and each year our Guardian angel takes pride of place – to the amusement of family and (in other years) visitors.
I wonder how long ago this was printed. Do any other readers still have their Guardian angel?
Mary Shepherdson
Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire
