John Arnold: Time to rest and reflect, festive season only starts on December 8

So here it is...well - nearly Merry Christmas, but Advent is here, the Church’s Liturgical New Year, and of course December is the beginning the meteorological season of winter.

Some people are glad to see the back of November as they find that it’s a kind of sad and dreary month.

Like, this year, for instance, October was a brilliant month - a seamless extension of a Super September. It wasn’t exactly the definition of an ‘Indian Summer’ but from a farming and agricultural point of view, grass never stopped growing.

Down the years, the period from March ‘til May was often called ‘the Hungry Months’ as in olden times winter stores of food for man and beast were exhausted and ‘new’ season crops weren’t yet abundant.

That was a time before plants grown in green houses and hothouses came to be available all year round.

Myself, over the last 50 years - well, I always thought October could make or break one from a farming point of view. If the tenth month of the year came wet and windy and cold, growth slowed down dramatically and often animals had to be housed earlier than usual.

There’s nothing more natural for farm animals than to be out night and day under the sky and consuming a diet of what nature yields.

But if October came bad -and it often did - well, then a six month winter season would eat dramatically into profits as costs would soar.

In fairness, October this year was a kind of bonus with grass growing like there was no tomorrow! Nature is amazing, isn’t it?

No matter how we study, parse and analyse it, we can never really grasp or understand the majesty and mystery of the how and why and maybe of the natural world.

David Attenborough is just six months short of a century. In terms of evolution and the natural world, a century is nothing at all. Yet even in his long life to date, this man has seen so much change and still he worries and ponders if it’s too late to save the world as we know it?

I just love listening to Attenborough. He doesn’t preach or lash out verbally, no, he talks common sense -which we all know is not so common in today’s world.

Back in 1965, there was a hit song with the words “and you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend, ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction”.

Warfare, nuclear arms and atomic bombs, lack of respect, hate and general mayhem were the themes being sung about six decades ago.

Are things improved on any of those fronts? You tell me… don’t think so. Problem is, we can now add biodiversity loss, habitat destruction and man-induced climate change to the list Philip Sloan wrote when he penned that song of protest.

He died in the month of November just ten years ago -unfortunately, he didn’t see any major positive changes in his lifetime.

We’ve just had COP 30 in Brazil but, as Attenborough might well say, it was more of a cop-out than anything else.

Sorry readers - I didn’t start off meaning to go on a negative rant or rave, but as the late Joe Dolan used sing and say: ‘Sometimes my mind should wander to a suddenly remembered yesterday’ and I can’t help thinking back on times past when life seemed a tad slower and a bit less complicated.

So, getting back to November, the month we’ve just bid adieu to - to tell the truth I love it above many other months. Yes, it’s dark early after the time change. An in-between time, it’s bounded by Halloween and Christmas, but it’s a time when the pace of life slows down. And you know we need a bit of down time too.

Of course, people must still work to make ends meet and pay the bills and squirrel away a few bob for Santy and Mr and Mrs Consumerism who’ll be calling any day now.

Some say, and with a fair modicum of truth, that the Christmas decorations go up on November 1 and we all can recall in days of yore that the real Christmas ‘season’ began next Monday, December 8.

Back then, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception was a strictly observed Church-Holyday with all schools closed. That’s long changed and we can’t rewind the clock.

For me, November can be a bit reflective - not sad, mind, because when I recall so many people I knew who are no longer with us, the tears are far outweighed by the smiles recalling fun times and great company.

Like Joe Dolan’s song, the suddenly remembered yesterday might be an old photo that falls out of a book, maybe a saying one hears on the radio that was a favourite of some long-gone family member, or just some thought that surfaces from the recess of memory for no apparent reason.

Ah yes, I love November - and December too - for different reasons.

Growing up in rural Ireland in the early 1960s, ‘town’ to us was Fermoy - places like Cork and Dublin were not on our radar.

November was always a busy month here at home as potatoes harvested in September and October and stored in earthen ‘pits’ were brought in from the fields.

Mam often said she educated the five of us from ‘selling the spuds’. Yes, there was money to be made but ‘twas hard work, but Mam never shirked from that labour.

‘Choosing’ the potatoes was the job she did by day and night this time of year. The small tubers were fed to pigs or kept for seed. The average- sized spud is what most people wanted and Mam had customers for the very big ones too - they were the favourite for making chips.

The cows were nearly dry at this time of year so the ‘Milk cheque’ would be fairly miserly. The potato money was welcome to pay bills. It also ensured we had a ‘good Christmas’ to look forward to.

I hear people say that in today’s world children get everything too easily and that ‘pocket money wasn’t invented until we joined the EEC’! Of course, there’s truth in all that, but then in our childhood days, we weren’t exposed to so much pressure from all angles as the children of today are.

I remember another ‘task’ for the dark days of November was trying to finally decide what to ask Santy for. We had no catalogues or online brochures and I suppose our expectations were not very high. Getting the letter written was another thing to be done before the trip to town on December 8.

You marked off the days of November on the wall calendar and then the first week of December. After Mass on the morning of the 8th, we piled into the car and off to town for a dream-filled day. It might be a few plastic farm animals, two comics or a packet of toy soldiers - whatever it was, that pre-Christmas gift was just wonderful.

Look, of course the world is a problematic place today, but as the calm of November passes and the joy and chaos and expectation of December has come, let’s be hopeful and help whoever we can.

Sharing is caring, and God knows we need both - all year round.