Regular readers of this fine organ may remember me grumbling about the arrival of autumn a couple of months ago. I’ve got past this now and have surrendered to the inevitable onslaught of rain and wind. So it was with some surprise that the other day I found myself (mildly) enthusiastic for Christmas.
As someone from a large family which has shrunk in recent years, due to more despatch than hatch, I’ve become increasingly ambivalent about the C word. I feel like I ought to like it, but actually Christmas can be fraught with expectation, overwhelm, and strife. I’ve never been a huge fan. I’m not keen on turkey, small talk, or the wearing of paper hats. And don’t get me started on the torture that is charades.
Having said that, I have spent Christmas Day on my own before, having developed some kind of ghastly strep throat affair. In martyrous fashion I elected to stay home alone, like Kevin, imagining the freedom from ritual and heartiness and stuffed fowl to be a blessing. But it backfired. I didn’t think I’d mind, but I did, and spent half the day howling with loneliness. As Will Self once poncily wrote in the Independent, “deliberately being alone on Christmas Day was a bad move… it was tempting fate to toy with isolation, when life, with all its impulsive alacrity, may at any time capriciously thrust you out in the cold.”
In later years as an adult hosting my own Christmases, I’ve aimed for some kind of halfway house – a nice roast, no big dramatic thing, no hustling my daughter (who dislikes Christmas even more than I do) to be jolly. Possibly a tree. But this year I admit to feeling a frisson of excitement. Not much, but a tiny fizz. Could this be… Christmas spirit?
Perhaps the news that IKEA has bought Churchill Square has cheered me up. Nothing like a bit of IKEA shopping and a bucket of meatballs and jam to cheer the spirits. Although lord knows when it’ll be open. Perhaps it’s the sight of a 70cl bottle of Baileys on sale in Tesco for £6 that’s done it. “Six quid!” I squawked loudly in the shop to no-one in particular. Whatever it is, I’m feeling it. And so I have decided to Get On Board with Christmas this year, instead of trying to pretend it’s not happening.
My Christmas resolutions, if you like, will be positive and upbeat. I will join in with things. I will say yes to nights out with friends. I will get pressies early and lovingly, instead of late on Christmas Eve when I’m half cut from a liquid lunch and crying in the crowds of other bewildered, desperate shoppers.
I will send Christmas cards – in time, not ones that arrive in January. And I will wear a Christmas jumper. I will not hate Slade. I will put up some decorations.
But more than anything, I will make time to spend with the people I love the most. Because if the other C word has taught us anything it’s that life is short, and people are precious. Make the most of both.
Have a wonderful Christmas everyone. See you on the other side.
l Sam is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Silver Magazine – for the mature maverick
The Whistler 