AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
The Italians have a good saying: “Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi.” Christmas with family, Easter with whomever you want! That sums up the festive spirit nicely for me.
It’s a time for tucking up at home with dear ones around us, for drinking, feasting and gift giving, with gratitude that we can do so. Bringing sparkle to the darkest days of the year with celebrations as the Winter Solstice signals the coming of a new year is something that humans have done for centuries before Christianity was born, in the Roman feast of Saturnalia, in Jewish Hanukkah and in the Nordic fest of Yule with Odin’s wild ride through the sky.
Somehow the madness of hanging glass icicles on the Christmas tree when it is 15 degrees outside, thanks to global warming, and adding glittering balls which the cat thinks have been put there for his entertainment don’t seem quite so daft when you are honouring traditions stretching back for generations and beyond.
There’s comfort in observing them and absorbing the goodwill generated at this time of year, comfort we sorely need given the sinister state of world affairs at present. The seasonal magic and nostalgia may be fragile defence against the way war, inhumanity and new hybrid threats like drones and cyberattacks can weigh on our minds. But it is a welcome distraction when we feel safe with family inside the Christmas bubble in our homes.
But spare a thought for those who don’t have homes. Homeless figures have reached a new high, with 16,700, among them 5,200 children in emergency accommodation. They may be housed in places that are unsuitable, damp or without proper cooking facilities. The insecurity and makeshift existence is hard on everyone. Bernardo’s charity say the effect is traumatic, especially for children and that widespread harm is being done as a result of homelessness and poor housing.
This is a really special time of the year for children with all the excitement and build up to the big day. But imagine if you are apart from your children and they are half the world away. That is the situation for many migrant workers on General Employment Permits kept apart for years from their families by our restrictive family reunification regulations, where workers – the backbone of hospital and care work –must wait 12 months and earn €44,000 pa before they can apply and the a further 18months before there is hope of being together, unless you are highly qualified and get reunification immediately.
It’s an unfair two-tier system and one which should be more child centred. As one mother put it: “I work here caring for people and then I go home alone.”
Then there are the thousands of young couples faced with soaring rents and impossible prices for houses, who cannot realise their dreams of having a home of their own and may ultimately leave Ireland to find one elsewhere.
Imagine fleeing your home in fear of your life and liberty due to war and persecution as the 32,000 international protection applicants who are in accommodation here have done. They hope to feel at home in Ireland but there are a minority here who want to drive them out.
The hopes of elderly people who do have homes are that they will be able to stay there, rather than go to a nursing home. Sage Advocacy, or older people, found that 90% of those surveyed did not wish to be institutionalised, the problem though is that the support to allow them to age in their own place is inadequate.
When I think of Christmas memories, they are not to do with signs of Christmas as early as September or when Santa and his elves jostle the displays of Halloween witches and pumpkins. They have to do with homely things, like the aroma of roasting turkey, the crack of pulled crackers or funny things like the time Grandpa set a paper hat on fire in the brandy blaze of plum pudding or the way my daughter once refused to go asleep for fear of a sooty gent coming down the chimney near her bed.
There is no place like home at Christmas but for those who have no place to call home there is a much needed change to hope for in the New Year.
