My friend Pete Hellard-Malt, who shares worship with me at Church, has recently begun to write a Blog of Christian musings under the title godblog.org.blog
Some thought-provoking and helpful spiritual gleanings are the result. He has kindly allowed me to include some of these in Mr G’s Ponderings and what better to begin with finding Jesus at Christmas.  [Mr.G.]

Not Another Christian looking for Christ at Christmas

Recently, I went Christmas shopping and came home with a feeling I did not expect.
Not panic over presents. Not sore feet. Not even shock at the price of wrapping paper.
It was sadness. A quiet sort of sadness, like when you realise something precious has slipped out of sight without anyone noticing.

We were in The Range (a local shop), where Christmas has clearly gone to the gym and bulked up. Six foot lamp-posts with swirling snow inside. Lights that can change colour more often than a toddler changes their mind. Tiny ballerinas spinning in little glass worlds. Foxes dressed as Santa for reasons no theology textbook can explain. Carousels and wheels all moving in perfect mechanical cheer. My daughter stared in amazement!

And yet in the middle of all that spectacle, the one thing missing was… Christmas.
Not a manger. Not a star. Not a shepherd. Not a single baby in a crib. Even the word itself had gone. It was “Xmas”, “Season”, “Festive Event”. A party without the birthday child. A story stripped of its opening line.
It reminded me of that scene in Friday Night Dinner where the son says, “Isn’t it a bit odd, us being Jewish and celebrating Christmas?” Mum replies, “Why?” He says, “Because it is a Christian holiday.” She pauses and says, “It is not.”
It used to be a joke. Now it feels like a shop policy.

For a moment, I felt like Christians had been politely uninvited. As if the world had taken the feast, kept the lights, the food, the music, the glitter, and gently pushed away the Christ it was all built around. It is a strange thing, to feel like a guest in your own holy day.

But then something shifted in me. A warmer thought began to grow.
The very first Christmas looked a lot like this.

Nobody noticed. Nobody was waiting. There were no fireworks, no shop displays, no banners saying “Welcome Saviour”. Just a tired couple in a borrowed stable. Just a baby born where animals sleep. Just a single star and some shepherds who were working the night shift. God arrived so quietly that only the ones who were listening in the dark heard the news.
And yet that quiet birth split history in half.
Which made me realise: maybe Christ has always been most himself at the edges. Not in the grand displays. Not in the spotlight. But in the humble, the hidden, the overlooked places.

Maybe the absence of Christ in the shops is not the end of Christmas, but the beginning of something truer.
Maybe when the high street forgets Him, the home remembers Him more deeply. Maybe when “Xmas” replaces “Christ” outside, His name becomes sweeter when spoken around the dinner table. Maybe the less the shops say about Jesus, the more meaningful it becomes when a parent tells the story to a child at bedtime.

And there is joy in that.
Because the world, even when it does not use His name, is still hungry for everything He brings. People still long for light in the darkness. They still want peace on earth, even if they cannot explain it. They still reach for love that does not run out. They still gather round a table because something in us knows we are made for community.

Even the inflatable penguin wearing a Santa hat is trying, in its own confused way, to point towards joy!

The lights are still searching for the Light of the World. The gifts are still longing for the Gift beyond all price. The songs are still echoes of the angels’ first words: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy for all people.” (Luke 2:10)
And that is where the hope lives.

Not in complaining that the shops have lost the plot, but in quietly living the plot ourselves. Not by fighting the culture, but by filling the spaces we do have with wonder, prayer, story, and love.
We can put a nativity in the window and know it shines brighter now than it did 30 years ago. We can sing a carol and trust it still touches something ancient in the soul. We can teach a child that Emmanuel means God with us, and watch their eyes widen as if they had heard it for the first time.
We can light one candle and let it speak louder than a thousand LEDs.
In a world that has forgotten the centre of Christmas, even the smallest act of Christlike love becomes radiant.
And maybe that is the gift God is giving back to us: not a loud Christmas, but a meaningful one. Not a cultural tradition, but a living story. Not a holiday we share with the world, but a hope we gently carry into it.

So yes, I walked out of the shop a little sad. But also more hopeful than before. Because maybe Christ is not missing after all. Maybe He is still exactly where He has always chosen to be: not in the flashy places, but in the quiet ones. Waiting to be noticed. Ready to be welcomed. Alive in every loving heart that whispers, “This is why we celebrate.”

Peter Hellard-Malt.
November/December 2025