“God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this day,
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray:

O tidings of comfort and joy,

comfort and joy,

O tidings of comfort and joy.”

- God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen English Traditional
(You may wish to sample my preferred bluegrass version.)

It is, inescapably, Christmas and that means it is time for us all once again to be exposed to those fixed points in the Christmas firmament – presents, indigestion, the music of Wizzard and people earnestly reminding us of the deeper meaning of Christmas.

If you need reminding about the deeper meaning of Christmas, you can do no better than Frank Capra’s masterwork, “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Surely anything I could have to say is mere gilding on Capra’s cinematic lily?

Perhaps.

After all, the Archbishop of Westminster has neatly summarised the theme in his Christmas homily: ‘The duplicity, deceit and bitterness within us and our society, can be overcome by accepting the gift of God’s love and forgiveness that comes among us in this Christmas celebration of the incarnation. Then, individually, and as a society, we may grow again. And in that growth lies our true happiness; a happiness of forgiveness, serving others, shared joy and lasting love.’

Good stuff that, but I don’t think it’s churlish to point out that organised religion has been attempting to get these points across for a while now. Most of us understand the value of love, forgiveness and service to others – so why is the average family rowing by 10am on Christmas Day? (according to some not very scientific research.)

The answer in my mind is a lack of practical steps to make those values accessible. With that in mind, my Christmas present to you is a handful of simple things you can do to up the general level of peace on earth and goodwill to all men.

#1 – Give the gift of your attention.

If you want to make someone feel important this Christmas, give them 100% of your attention. Bill Clinton is fabled for his ability to make the individuals he meets feel like the most important people in his world. Whatever you think of Clinton overall, it is clear that that’s a gift that touches the hearts and lives of everyone he gives it to. And it’s not difficult to do.

We live in a world of such complexity and constant interruption that most of us are used to having many things vying for our attention simultaneously. We often spread ourselves thinly between them all. But there is nothing so heartwarming and life-affirming as knowing that the person you are speaking to is giving you 100% of their attention.

So try it. Next time you’re with someone, give them the gift of direct eye contact, a peaceful and relaxed demeanour and 100% of your concentrated attention. Not unlike the cider I’ll be mulling a bit later, you may find this is rather potent stuff.

#2 – Give the gift of empathy.

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.” - David Foster Wallace, Commencement Address.

I could write many entries about David Foster Wallace and the ideas embodied in his remarkable commencement address to Kenyon College, but let’s try and stick to the subject.

The particularly relevant part of the address is Foster Wallace’s idea that most of us lived as the ‘lords of our own, tiny skull-sized kingdoms’, that is, we rarely venture to see the world from anything other than our own point of view, nor to be concerned with the feelings of anyone else but ourselves.

Yet who among us doesn’t crave empathy – the experience that another human beings understands and accepts how we are feeling without judgement or agenda? I sincerely hope you can think of a time in your life when you felt free to unburden your feelings to someone else knowing that they wouldn’t judge, punish or try to alter what you were feeling.

That’s empathy – so how do you do it practically? It’s pretty simple – give the person your attention, and when they articulate how they’re feeling, just say ‘I hear/understand that you’re feeling XYZ.’ Do it with attention, do it with sincerity and do it in the genuine effort to try and share the emotional experience of the person you’re talking to.

Simplistic? Trite? Maybe, but you try it and see what happens. Nothing makes us feel we’re not alone in the world like empathy, and like most things, it’s simple in theory and demanding in practice. Give someone your empathy, and I almost guarantee they’ll feel loved, accepted and valued by you. That’s a nice christmas present, isn’t it?

#3 – Give the gift of acceptance.

We are the society that loves judgement – good/bad, right/wrong, acceptable/unacceptable, valuable/worthless, important/irrelevant, fat/thin, rich/poor and on and on and on.

And we all know the pain of being judged on the right hand side of those equations. Who wants to think they’re bad or wrong? Or more subtlely: unsuccessful, unimportant or unloved? Yet such judgements are pervasive and damaging.

So what can we do? It may be a little challenging, but let’s look at an example.

You can start with the way you judge yourself. Perhaps it’s getting to the end of the year, and you’re nagging away at yourself in your head that you haven’t been successful enough. Not so much fun – a little acceptance would probably feel a whole lot better. Here’s the steps:

1. Question yourself until you have a specific description of what’s wrong – ‘I haven’t been successful enough’ isn’t specific, ‘I haven’t made £30,000 this year’ is. Ask yourself what evidence you have for your judgement.

2. Then ask yourself what you feel when you think that judgemental thought – it could be angry, frustrated, sad or anything else.

3. With that feeling, ask yourself what need isn’t being met that gives rise to it. If you’re angry, it could be a need for security, love or anything else. To dig out the need, you might ask, ‘what’s important to me about making £30,000?’.

4. Knowing what you need, ask yourself what else you might do to meet that need in the future.

Those four steps are often enough to let go of judging yourself and accept who and what you are. That happens because the judgement is there as a guide to future action – and once you’ve made your plan in the last step, you don’t need the judgement anymore.

Acceptance feels good, it’s as simple as that, and the more things in your life you apply the formula to, the more you experience the warmth of acceptance – good for you and good for them.

So those are my christmas gifts – attention, empathy and acceptance. Bit like gold, frankincense and myrrh really – like gold, attention makes the subject valuable; like frankincense, empathy sweetens the atmosphere; like myrrh, acceptance soothes our wounds.

Have very Happy Christmas, and if you celebrate something other than Christmas around now, have a happy one of those too.