Christmas bonus

I’ve been thinking about Christmas.  It’s inevitable, geese everywhere are plumping up a treat and John Lewis is reducing a nation to tears.  Incidentally, Marks and Spencer are burning their Christmas bridges with me, I can’t be doing with those smooth skinned, warbling youngsters, it brings out my inner Scrooge.  Instead, I enjoy a slightly bleak looking suburban setting, with a dad wearing heavy rimmed specs and a child in sensible flannel pyjamas.  I grew up in a house like that, my dad wears heavy rimmed specs, and I still wear sensible flannel pyjamas (yes, my sartorial flair does extend to the bedroom).  That is Christmas to me, except the snow.  Why do we always buy in to the Christmas snow myth?  We all know that it doesn’t really snow in the home counties at Christmas. 

John Lewis Christmas Advert

Angela - I loved her until she withered and died

Welsh dresser, bookcases filled with books at untidy angles, pebble dashing, decorations on the banister and a special Christmas table cloth, it’s all familiar.  The only inauthentic note I can find in the JL advert is that when it finally gets to Christmas, the young lad wakes up at about 10 to 8.  Bollocks!  I still wake up at 6am on Christmas day, except for on one memorable occasion when I woke up to find not only a biscuit crumbled in my hand but half a soggy biscuit still in my mouth after one too many Christmas wassails the night before.  I am still incredulous when the stocking arrives on my bed or door handle without me noticing (probably the Christmas wassails again) and the second worst thing my mum did last year was to decide we didn’t really need Christmas crackers.  In short, I love Christmas and the entire cynical grumble inducing paraphernalia that goes with it.  

All my thoughts of Christmas are of home.

I think the celebration of Christmas is my strongest cultural tie.  I don’t quite believe it really exists outside of northern Europe.  I know objectively that it does but I can’t quite reconcile the fact with my image of what constitutes Christmas.  I’m happy with the concept of a German Christmas; lord knows marzipan from Lubeck is a good thing.  I’m content with a Swedish Christmas; heaven help us but a tomte is a delightful addition.  I’m over the moon about a Polish Christmas, though you need a heavenly host to help you source a suitable carp.  I just can’t quite imagine an Aussie Christmas or a Chinese Christmas, or a Mexican Christmas, or indeed a Christmas anywhere that’s hot. 

Despite my heavy handed use of religious imagery in the previous paragraph, I don’t think a religious link is important.  I would go so far as to drag in other religious festivals to the wintery celebration mix, like Diwali, Hanukah etc but I wouldn’t go so far as to rename the period ‘Winterval’.   For me, Christmas is about family and community and warmth and joy and celebration.  Though I love carols from Kings and you might even find me at mass on Christmas Eve, I was only ever a sheep in the nativity and have been known to forcibly change the key of a happy band of carollers with my shoddy attempts to hold a tune. 

I am over 8,000 miles from home.

Some places in Laos have Christmas decorations up in August.  I quite like that you can see a fake fir tree in the courtyard of a Vientiane hotel on any given date but that does mean that the trappings are completely dissociated from the event.

This Christmas, I’m lucky enough that my great friend, who I’ve known for 16 years, will be coming to stay.  We’re going to one of the National Protected Areas to spend time in a swanky eco-lodge, ride elephants, visit archaeological sites and have lovely massages.  It should be a fantastic few days but I don’t think it’ll be very Christmassy.  More like a distraction from the fact that we’ll both be far from home and away from the rest of our kith and kin....and mince pies, and Raymond Briggs animations.

Oddly, my biggest concern is what happens if I really enjoy it?  Will Christmas be ruined forever?  Will a lingering ambivalence about roasted meats set root?  Will I join the treacherous band of malcontents who regularly decamp to warmer climes for Christmas?

I really hope not.

You may think I’m a sentimental bloody fool and you’d probably be right but I think Christmas is pretty special among a shrinking group of big festivals.  My maypole dancing is definitely not up to scratch any more and I've never rolled a cheese.  

Sozzled Christmas nap

So there we are, I’m an advertiser’s dream but I don’t really care.  As Kermit the frog once said, ‘god bless us every one’ and as Kay Harker once said ‘if you push it to the left, you can go swift’.

Disclaimer: the cultural references in this blog are even more esoteric than usual as it’s essentially written as a giant and overly long Christmas card to my family, who I love and miss.  They really should get rid of the goose fat from 3 years ago though.  Merry Christmas!