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It might seem strange to start this chapter with a movie review but bear with me as it is pertinent.

“One Magic Christmas is a 1985 American/Canadian Christmas fantasy film directed by Phillip Borsos. It was released by Walt Disney Pictures and stars Mary Steenburgen and Harry Dean Stanton. It was shot in Meaford, Ontario with some scenes in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada.

Harry Dean Stanton was one of my favourite actors who sadly died in September combine that with Mary Steenburgen and I had to watch this rather old Christmas film.

Ginnie is not in the Christmas spirit at all and you can’t blame her, her husband has been out of work for six months, they are being evicted from their home after Christmas and she works as a checkout assistant in a supermarket where she has a miserable boss. Money is tight and she sees other people struggling without the wherewithal to make ends meet.

Lurking in the background is an angel tasked with bringing her the spirit of Christmas. Enter, Harry Dean Stanton looking more like a serial killer than an angel.

The children in the story are like soft centred chocolates. Too sweet to be true of course. As the lights go out on all the houses, life takes a tragic turn for the worse, a bank robbery, Dad is shot dead, the children are kidnapped and the car runs off a bridge into an icy river. Death and misery abound.

It all is a plan by Gideon, a plan used in countless films, to make people see what’s really important in life.

The lights go on again and the day is rerun and Ginnie is able to see what really matters and rejoices in Christmas.

It’s utter pap of course, the overly sentimental hogwash beloved in Northern America. Yet if you remove your critical faculties for ninety minutes and curl up on a horrible wet afternoon, you find you have learned a lesson yourself about what’s really important and ninety minutes of your life have slipped by, with perhaps a little nap along the way.”

At the very start of this book I talked about the mish mash of ideas that people have about the nature of the Divine. This film has it in heaps.

Fallacy number one is that people who die become angels. I hear it all the time, it used to be stars as I recall, where the idea came from I have no idea but it isn’t true of course. Are there Angels? Yes indeed. They are powerful creations of God, they are around us and my blessed Guardian angel has been with me throughout my life. But he isn’t a human being and dead people don’t become angels.

Fallacy number two is the idea of a Christmas Spirit. There is no such thing and without trying to sound like Scrooge, Santa Claus, baubles, lights and trees and a pile of presents have nothing to do with Christmas. Nor is it about sentiment, babies and cooing.

It is and the clue is in the name Christ Mass. Christmas starts on Christmas Day and goes on for far longer than commercial interests would lead you to believe. It is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. About God intervening at a set place and time about 2,000 years ago. The Christ child who had been foretold for centuries was both God and Man. It was the turning point in history.

When we remove Christ completely from the Christmas season we miss the whole point of the celebration. The same of course also applies at Easter when eggs and bunnies and daffodils replace the glory of Christ rising from the dead.

The more society turns these celebrations into commercial events the harder it is for those who are trying to learn to see the reality of the Divine. In our current western societies where anything to do with Christian faith is quietly subverted or removed entirely it is hard to swim against the tide. It requires enormous strength and courage to hold fast to what is true.

What we can learn in this chapter is the need to look at all aspects of our life and re-evaluate everything in the light of truth. Examine our thoughts and attitudes and beliefs to make sure that what we think, do and practise is in line with the revealed truth. It can be a very painful process to discover that long held attitudes, ideas or acceptance of the societal norms where we live are no longer acceptable in light of the Divine revelation.

Jesus made this very clear and in a late night chat with Nicodemus when He told him that in order to enter the Kingdom of heaven we need to be born again. A fresh start is needed.

This isn’t some magic wand waving moment but a life long willingness to let God into every part of our life and to be willing to change as God leads us into conforming ourselves into the image or imitation of Christ. To learn to see.