I have a rule...

I have a rule; whilst I love mince pies, I do not permit the eating of such a delight until the 1^st December. As such, having baked yesterday and refrained from ‘testing’ the results, today  I indulged. Managing to wait until mid-morning tea time, I then carefully removed the lid of the cake tin, selected a mince pie, placed it onto one of my grandmothers ancient and beautiful vintage cake plates, and whilst relishing the aroma, waited for the tea in the pot to brew.  Sitting back in my chair, my thoughts fleeting free from the turmoil of news and events, politics and provocation, the anticipation of this moment that can happen but once a year amused me.  It was just a mince pie after all.  Or was it that, bound up in this tradition were Christmas traditions past, present and future? Yes a cliched reference to Dickens here, but there is an essence of truth.  When I eat my first mince pie connects with when I decorate my tree where each bauble hung on the tree has its own unique story to tell.  This coincides with when I sit more frequently in candle light as the darkness falls earlier and earlier in the afternoon, when I send advent calendars to children in far off countries, and those living closer to home, and  when I carry on my Nanna’s tradition of pickling onions.  Recent years have seen me reflect on what the time of Christmas and the winter solstice brings.  I have been motivated to embrace the new and be in the moment of experience, not things.  How could I have known that writing about my morning tea with mince pies would result in me quoting out loud to myself the words of T S Elliot…

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.”

Burnt Norton