It was about this time some years ago when my son came home from kindergarten and announced that Father Christmas is a fraud and that God does not exist. A friend who had only just shed his own diaper had given him these certainties. My own upbringing seemed even more like a series of events in the late Neolithic.
It was not hard for my parents to have me believe in Father Christmas; the world conspired with them. Far from anybody contesting the existence of the Almighty, there seemed to be a wall-to-wall belief. We acquired our faith by osmosis simply by being exposed to the religious practices that permeated our daily lives long before we were formally prepared for our First Holy Communion.
We acquired religion and associated traditions just as we acquired speech.
Did I ever ask how Father Christmas broke into our house and delivered gifts for six children without the benefit of a chimney? Why should I? There were four angels guarding my bed every night and a guardian angel followed me around all day. All grown-ups spoke about them so it did not matter much that I had never set eyes on them.
God was something like my grandmother who ruled a vast clan simply by being there. Her unspoken decrees were obeyed by the apparently infinite tiers of grown-ups towering above me. She was loved and respected by all the uncles, aunts and cousins who gathered at her house. Everybody was at pains not to incur her displeasure although I never heard her speak an angry word.
Nanna died in 1965 and it seems like a whole world died with her. Christmas was never the same after that. The vast clan had lost its focus, its five branches set apart to face the novelty of a world which combined the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis with the Vietnam War and Biafra with the mini-skirt and the Beatles, the bomb, the pill and psychedelia. My guardian angel and all his mates had a hard time of it. I never asked him how he coped with Vatican Council II.
Malta went from misery to wealth. Emigration petered out as tourism picked up. Fortunes were made in the building industry and everybody waited his turn to scoop up the takings from a fabulous property deal. Politics was always a nasty business but it then turned deadly. All landmarks seemed to be gone forever. All certainties were gone.
Malta remains more Catholic than the Vatican but there is sometimes good reason to doubt whether it is even Christian any more. Christmas is good for business, indispensable for some businesses. Midnight Mass will be a standing room only affair as always with plenty of restaurants making a buck on Christmas breakfast. There are still plenty of intricate cribs to visit but can children be fascinated by a slow-moving mechanical donkey when their own toys transform, squeal and pop to wireless command?
They will have to make their own way to belief or to the lack of it in a world with plenty of both. Wherever they get to, it will not be because everybody else did the same as far as the eye can see. They have something like a choice and they are brought up knowing that some do and some don't believe. Their convictions will be their own.
One thing remains amid all the distractions: A child was born 2007 years ago and grew up to bear a message inviting us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek. Sheep and shepherds may no longer be a part of our daily lives but the birth in a manger still calls us to something better than the fattest bank account of all.
Every year, we are reminded of our own mortality by all the ghosts of merry Christmasses past. Even as we feast we realise that time is more precious than money and that the twinkle in a child's eye is worth more than anything we could buy.
We may rant against the hypocrisy and the exploitation of Christmas if we choose but heart of the matter remains no matter how deep it may become buried in tinsel and crackers, puddings and macaroni, there is happiness to be found in touching somebody's heart, a reward far greater than the cost of any gift.
It is a Christian message which has been taken up by non-Christians the world over because it was always theirs also. Christians may believe that He came to remind us of the best part of our humanity; all others can experience the truth of it directly. Christmas provides an excellent annual opportunity indiscriminately. If we realise that nothing can make us happier than making others happy, we may have saved our souls even if we have come to doubt their existence. Nobody can doubt that the world becomes a slightly better place for it.
Ironically, the absence of wall-to-wall Christianity allows its essence to shine brighter. Perhaps the commercial hullabaloo provides a sharper contrast to the peace promised on earth to men (and women) of goodwill. Christmas remains impervious to it all, pouncing out upon us when we least expect it: in "the ghastly tie so kindly meant" or in the taste of mince pies which remind us of somebody who loved us well. The more we are urged to rush about to spend and celebrate, the more poignant it is when we are reminded that we too have a heart and that we need not be ashamed of showing it.
May your hearts be touched this Christmas and may your eyes shine in reflection of the joy you bring to others.
Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - the Green party.
www.alternattiva.org.mt
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