Look Out Llangollen – The Christian Soldiers are On the March

The Welsh town of Llangollen is to reinstate pagan festivals to its “Christmas” celebrations. Santa Claus will be decked out in green rather than red. Sion Corn, as Father Christmas is known in Welsh, will parade through the town in his green outfit on December 2.

Ian Parry, Llangollen’s town clerk, said “We are trying to highlight some traditional things that should happen in a Welsh Christmas. Getting Santa back into green is just one of them.”
Other traditions being resurrected include a day of feasting on cheese on toast, predicting the future using treacle toffee or Taffy shapes and an appearance by the lucky pagan Grey Mare or Mari Llwyd. There will be some concession to Christianity with a “live Nativity” (which presumably will not include a virgin birth).

Festival organiser Sarah Meade said: “Everything about the Festive period is a hotch potch of ancient pagan traditions and more modern marketing practices all spun together under the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ. It’s only when you start looking a little deeper into what makes the Christmas we know and love so well that this starts to become apparent.”
Do the good burghers of Llangollen know that the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu – fresh from his PR triumph over the British Airways “banned cross” scandal – has his scouts out looking for this kind of persecution of Christians? Do they realise that predicting the future with the use of toffee threatens the whole future of Christianity in Britain? Are they aware that baby Jesus will cry himself to sleep tonight at the thought that his birthday will be celebrated by the heathen consumption of cheese on toast?

The Christian soldiers are surely on their way to Llangollen, with Sentamu’s banner held high! Full particulars will, no doubt, be found on the front pages of the Mail and Express before the end of the week – that is if they can find the space among the dishonest rabble-rousing they’re engaged in about the BA case.