Yorkshire Pudding for the Soul: Creating a magical Christmas

When I think back to my childhood Christmases, it’s not the presents or family arguments I recall, but a visceral feeling deep in my belly. I remember the anticipation, a rumble of butterflies, a skipping giggle near my heart. I’m sure it’s because my parents, despite being constantly broke, knew how to conjure magic out of very little.  I didn’t have an ideal childhood, yet my brothers, my parents and I had an unwritten pact that we would share a twenty-four hour window of magical thinking from the 24th to the 25th of December. My family was not religious, so Christmas in our house was never about church, but it was, in its own way, about belief.

One of the things I love about humankind is our ability to create magic. There is a wide-eyed child in us, even if our back-stories are troubled, who believes in flying reindeer and stardust.  It’s as if we are all longing for utopia and we allow a little of our naivety, our raw hope to leak into to the world at Christmas.

Beyond the clamor of religious messages and consumerism, what this time of year symbolizes in the Northern Hemisphere, is hope.  Hope that the light will return after months of darkness, hope that we have enough sustenance to make it through winter. Throughout December, we long for the irreverent explosion of shameless daffodils that heralds the return of spring. We give each other presents as symbols of abundance, we bring evergreens into our homes, reaffirming the continuity life.

Christmas is tricky in our house as our children are nearly ten years apart. The Biscuit Thief, aged seven, is still there with the reindeer and the half eaten carrots, but the teenage Songbird mourns her loss of faith in the magic of Christmas. Every year I watch my eldest chasing that childhood feeling and grieving as it rumbles over her head and lodges itself instead in the heart of her little sister.

“I miss it, I miss that feeling of believing,” the Songbird said to me last year and I remembered regretting that loss of innocence too. Once your eyes have been opened to truth it’s like trying to force yourself to fall in love; you just can’t do it.

So I was thinking about magic and belief, and how I could still make things special for both my girls. I realised that, once you grow out of Father Christmas and elves, you sense a different kind of magic; you understand that this time of year is about human kindness.

The giggle of butterflies in my belly may have fluttered to nothing years ago, but there are things that will always create a stirring in my heart. For example, I love singing Christmas songs with other people; resonance between a load of strangers is magical. Then there is the smell of Frankincense and Neroli oil that I burn all of December creating a comforting mood in the home. The smell of my childhood Christmases was my mum’s Yorkshire Puddings. She conjured heaven from batter, pure enchantment! Open fires crackling heat against icy windows, twinkling lights against a blackened sky; all of these things are magical because they put the possible and impossible next to each other. Is that why we love the impossible perfection of Christmas snow that promises to render our unfair and noisy world equal and silent?

Creating magic is not the same the stressful tasks we set ourselves such as providing the perfect meal, giving expensive gifts, or creating the picture-postcard family scene. Magic is tiny and fleeting and found in the smallest of gestures; ringing sleigh bells in the street, a loaf of cinnamon bread left on a neighbour’s doorstep. Random acts of kindness can transform someone’s anxiety-laden Christmas into one of enchantment. We can all be a magician for someone, casting our spells and weaving a little wonder. Magic stays with our children much longer than plastic toys

— Sara Bran

Sara Bran is the mother of two daughters: The Biscuit Thief, aged 7, and the Teenage Songbird, aged 16. She writes about  motherhood, creativity, ageing, women’s health and London life on her blog Notes From the Edge of Motherhood at www.sarabran.com. She loves talking nonsense on Twitter @sarabran.