A season far removed from more innocent days of yore

Country Living with Francis Farragher

There was a time . . . alas many moons ago . . . when our primary school days would always be marked out by the holiday periods, and almost inevitably too by a visit from the local Parish Priest who would do a quick check on our knowledge of Christian Doctrine.

Thankfully, I have no unpleasant memories of those visits with the PP from Corofin, a man of kindly disposition and ailing years, always tending to ask the same questions, especially in the run-up to Easter and Christmas.

Often his pre-Christmas visit to the school would happen around the end of November, probably to coincide with the run-up to the season of Advent, an ‘event’ that we’d have been well tutored on by our Franciscan teachers, keen to ensure that our religious knowledge was at the tip of our tongues.

So, when the inevitable question would be asked by the PP in the dying embers of November about what was so special about this time of year, we’d all have our stock answers ready about Advent, and it’s time of preparedness for the arrival of the baby Jesus, about a month later.

We’d all have the same rhymes to blurt out and we’d be bursting a gut to ‘get there first’ with the replies, and in the process pick up some kudos from the teacher about how well spoken and smart we were about the arrival of Advent.

A little tale I heard last week prompted this line of thought when a teacher asked his class about what was the big event that was coming up around the end of November, one that would be a forerunner to the Christmas festival.

In my era, the standard answer would have been flooded with images of Advent and Christmas but in 2019, the reply was quite a different one. Kids being kids, the answer that they piped up, to a child, was: “The Toy Show”, and I suppose at least there was honesty and spontaneity there.

Our little lectures about Advent, despite being wrapped in a cloak of solemnity, still couldn’t disguise our anticipation that this season gave notice of Christmas not being that far away . . . with all its trappings of feasting, presents, Santa Claus and of course holidays from school.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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