Magnetism of a child lies at heart of Christmas

It’s December and the supermarket conveyor belt is crammed with my groceries. Most are everyday items, but some are festive buys. Apples, bread, meat and water chase the mince pies and mulled wine that crowd ahead. Chocolate biscuits, cereal and Stollen rolls pile high and shake ominously like buildings in an earthquake.

My trolley is still far from empty when I notice him. He’s in his late 50s perhaps, poorly shaven, clutching a bottle of mouthwash and a toothbrush. “Go on ahead,” I say. I repeat it louder, and for good measure add a gesture with my head. Still no response.

This time I speak slowly and clearly: “You can go before me, if you like.” He jumps and points silently at my infant daughter. She’s clipped into the plastic crib of my shopping trolley, her face towards him. “Sorry, I was miles away,” he mumbles. “I was looking at your baby.”

Decades of embarrassment

I nod as he shuffles past, five decades of embarrassment on his face. “Thanks,” he says. Then in that particular Irish way he mutters “thanks again”, as if one thank you is not enough to convince me he isn’t a threat, or anything other than a middle-aged man in a supermarket queue.

I peep at my baby’s face just to make sure. She lies motionless and stoical. She kicks her legs to acknowledge my presence but nothing more.

As I pack my bags she’s at it again, with the shoppers in the next aisle. It’s a grandmother this time. I can tell. Her daughter is packing bags. “I’ll do this,” she had told her mother loudly. This is shorthand for don’t get in my way.

“Mother” approaches us stealthily, as if unaware her feet have moved. She looks for a while before realising she too is being scrutinised intently by my daughter. Tilly locks eyes, poker-faced and ready for a stare-out.

“Look at her feet,” Mother whispers to me. “Isn’t she cold?” I shake my head. “Can’t keep socks on her.” It’s true. My seven-month-old daughter has a talent for tenaciously tugging off every item that envelops her feet – socks, shoes, even blankets – before grinning triumphantly when the offending item emerges in her hand. She even tries to pull off her tights.

Mother nods sagely, and I know she knows a way to keep them on. At her age, all women have such wisdom even if she won’t impart it to me. By now, I have finished bagging all my goods. “Maybe she’ll be a dancer,” I suggest, as I shove my shopping trolley towards the door. “Happy Christmas,” I add as an afterthought. Mother says the same back.

A child is born

As we emerge into the frosty car park air, daylight has already begun to fade, and behind me the supermarket lights still twinkle with promise. “For unto us a child is born,” I whisper as I look at Tilly. For her, the eyes and attention of others is commonplace. And I can’t help but think of another child.

Not one who came as a young man full of drive and ambition, nor a shouting politician full of fury and adrenaline, not even a religious leader murmuring and gliding his way past the difficult questions.

He came, just like her, as a baby. And I realise that’s the only way to solicit a response from us – a way to get beneath our guard, past the last-minute gift shopping, febrile queues, and frantic traffic.

A child stops us in our tracks, and only a child can call us to worship. No shepherd or wise man came to my daughter that day but the average man and woman did, not to worship, but to delight in new life, in innocence and a chance to begin again. And they come every day to her, not just once a year. They stop and pause and wonder. That’s the Christmas message, isn’t it?  I clicked Tilly into her car seat, and kissed her head. I may even have said a thank you.

Audrey Talbot is a mother of two, school teacher and writer