We’re here tonight, and that’s enough

The Retune Blog - 22nd December 2023

Walking into the village to get a bus this week I spotted a class of children from the local primary school going up to sing carols on the street corner. A few hours later on the way home, I got off the bus to another class just arriving to start carolling.  Both times, parents were arriving and everyone (including myself) had smiles on their faces in anticipation of the singing about to start.

At Christmas, both communal singing and finding joy in gathering together become so much more apparent. It’s something that comes across in the video and lyrics to Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime:

The party's on, the feeling's here. … The choir of children sing their song.

We can find joy in gathering and joining in activities, like singing, together. But for some it can also bring anxiety. Are we good enough? Is the house ready? Have we got enough food / drinks / gifts? Is everything going to be prepared just right? (Like in one of those Christmas ads).

That’s one of the things I love about this week’s song:

We're here tonight, and that's enough.

The lyric is a fantastic reminder that we are enough as we are. People don’t expect perfection - I bet none of the parents of the carolling school children went away thinking they could have pitched that better. When people come to your home and it’s not quite looking like the show home from the ads, no real friend is going to judge you for that.

So, why be paralysed by the false advertising narrative of perfection? Instead, why not enjoy the fun of the imperfect authentic approach to life which brings self and others so much more joy and is based on the idea that we are already enough as we are. After all, it’s not our perfectionism that people come to see, but us just as we are.