The festive season runs more or less from Black Friday to New Year, embracing Hanukkah, Christmas and the ancient festival of Yuletide. The Hindu Festival of Lights, "Diwali", celebrates the triumph of good over evil and comes earlier, though a similar sentiment!

Thanksgiving in the USA was when the early settlers celebrated arriving safely, and met local Indians peacefully in the New World. A cartoon depicts a tribal elder asking settlers "Could you come Wednesday when we have pizza? Thursdays is always turkey!" Tradition now has Americans starting their Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving, so it is dubbed "Black Friday" by retailers whose previous losses in red ink were changed to profitable black ink by the huge surge of buying!

Ancient Yuletide was feasting to celebrate the lengthening of daylight, leading to spring and the return of more fruitful times. Some food preserved for long term storage was brought out as a break from minimal rations to cheer everyone up, which created a chance for early bureaucrats sampling stocks to make sure they were not going off!

Festive traditions vary. In Norway, their Christmas meal is prepared from dried fish soaked in water for two days and cooked with sauces. Not every Englishman's dream, but very tasty if you like fish! Turkey is not a European bird, so that tradition flew across the Atlantic, along with Black Friday and spending more than we can possibly afford to support the retail and hospitality industries!

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, which historians now tell us probably occurred in the spring or early summer. However, early Christians set festivals in tune with previous partying, so Christmas is on 25th December. The Eastern Churches celebrate Christmas on 7th January, leaving Ukraine to decide between its older Eastern tradition and its new found Western connections.

Jewish prophets had forecast that their Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, no doubt causing a surge in property prices. However, Jesus was actually born in the outhouse of an inn while his mother was visiting from Galillee during a census. The angel Gabriel and the Heavenly Host announced this to shepherds on the hillside, who lived rough with their sheep. They were the scruffs, outcasts from Jewish society. We can picture them today as homeless Palestinians. That is what they actually were, homeless Palestinians!

The other notables to visit were three kings from the East, with gifts of gold denoting kingship, of frankincense denoting priesthood and myrrh denoting suffering. The political masters in Jerusalem heard the prophecy about a new leader and ordered all young children to be killed, hoping to catch the baby Jesus, but his family had fled with him into Egypt. Does history always repeat itself?

The Jewish Hanukkah also occurs in the run up to Christmas. Americans refer to "The Holidays" to be neutral between Jews and Christians, so Jewish friends in the USA sent Hanukkah cards and I sent them Christmas cards, both wishing well in our own ways.

What is now renamed "the festive season" is a time for positive friendship with family and all those around us, consistent with ancient Yuletide, with the Christmas message of peace and goodwill, plus Diwali celebrating the triumph of light over darkness.

The message is for us to be kind, thoughtful and supportive, bringing peace, goodwill and hope to everyone around us. We all need it!