21st December 2003 

UK stock markets climbed, with the FTSE100 index ending at 4412.3, climbing of the low on Tuesday of just over 4330 and managing a gain for the week of 64.7.

The initial euphoria at the capture of Saddam Hussein which produced a rise of over 50 points in the FTSE100 on Monday morning soon evaporated, but had returned by Wednesday and combined with better than expected employment figures from the U.S. as well as the UK to start a steady rise for the rest of the week. Rising oil prices pushed up most oil company shares, and Cable & Wireless rose on strong recommendations from analysts all helping to push the FTSE100 higher as Wall Street seemed determined to ignore any hint of negative news and to climb regardless.

With the FTSE100 index closing at its highest for 16 months and New York’s Dow Jones index at its highest for 19 months, some analysts are predicting that the FTSE100 will break through 4500 before the end of the year. However, the nervous trading on Friday afternoon that took the Dow Jones into negative territory for several house, the small losses for the Nasdaq index, the wide trading range during the week for most of the leading indexes, all point to continuing nervousness which is bound to take its toll.

It is nearly Christmas.

That is, of course, a fairly daft statement because there can be hardly anyone who has actually managed to miss that fact.

It is tempting to moan, complain, grouse and protest at the expense, the ridiculous excitement, the crazy lights and decorations, the commercialisation and all the paraphernalia and trappings without which we would be in danger of being considered "different" or "odd". After all, by the next time I try to compose a "News Comment" page it will all be over, bar the indigestion and hangovers.

I could, perhaps, emulate Scrooge and insist on working, complain at having to give staff a day or two off work, and mutter "Bah, humbug" at every sign of Christmas festivity and at the good wishes for the festive season from those around me.

I could bemoan the waste of electricity by all those twinkling lights, and the visual pollution to the environment by the addition of all the bizarre figures and illuminated signs which surely would be considered in breach of planning regulations if displayed at any other time of the year.

And yet......there is something warming and cheering to have all this as we pass the darkest time of the year. In purely human terms, of course, there has always been the need for midwinter feasting and celebrations long before Christmas, but the focus given to these celebrations by the Christian meaning of Christmas provides something additional and something rather special. Only a minority, perhaps, will take much time to consider the birth of Jesus this Christmas, and only a minority will concentrate on this as being central to whatever else they do.

Does it matter? Does it matter that for most the very reason for having Christmas, the birth of Jesus, is no more than what they see at a school nativity play or hear in meaningless words in some carol?

Maybe it matters. Or maybe it is unimportant.  What matters much more, I think, is an unavoidable theme which still remains central to Christmas, which certainly is central to Christianity but which also has its roots in nearly all religions and in teachings of philosophers and humanists inside and outside religion, and which, however Scrooge-like one tries to be, manages to touch each of us in some way or another at Christmas.

The theme of "peace and goodwill" is what I’m talking about. I’m not suggesting that we all go out every Christmas and find a "poor man gathering winter fuel" to feed and clothe. Nor am I suggesting that we completely avoid all conflict, relish the idea of visiting our most disagreeable relatives or manage to totally avoid a cross word or two with our spouses, but almost without exception we do all make the effort.

We do invite or visit our most unpleasant relatives. We do, at the very least, send them Christmas cards. We find it very difficult not to smile at the more outrageous decorations with which at least one resident in almost every neighbourhood has covered the entire outside of his house and garden. We find it impossible not to buy something extra or special, however small it may be, to east or drink on Christmas day. We give and receive gifts, and experience an odd feeling of joy when we see someone’s eyes light up at receiving something they really wanted. We do think of others less fortunate than ourselves, however fleeting those thoughts might be for those who try and pretend Christmas means nothing to them. We have much more difficulty in walking past a charity collecting box or not pausing for a few seconds to listen to a Salvation Army band and digging in our pockets for some loose change. We can do it if we put our minds to it, but this time of the year it has become far more difficult to resist than to go with the flow and to give something.

For once, we really would prefer to be at peace than in conflict, even if that peace may cost us more financially than fighting whatever it is that makes us feel we are in the right and someone else is in the wrong.

And we smile more. Don’t take my word for it, just go out and look. Even amidst the stress of the last-minute Christmas shoppers and lunchtime office workers grabbing a few minutes outside before desperately trying to complete that project which must be finished before January, more of them smile more easily. Try smiling at them, and you will see what I mean.

News Comment?

No. Sentimental twaddle from which I will have recovered by next weekend, or at worst by the weekend after. But until then I wish all of you a very happy Christmas, and much peace and goodwill to you, your friends and your families.