Merry Christmas (war is over)

It’s a funny old time of year. The cynics are busy cynicising (if that’s not a verb, it should be), banging the over-commericalised drum, and bah-ing their humbugs. The idealistic’s eyes are shining with fairy lights. Children’s eyes are wide and glittery (perhaps, upon closer inspection, also a little feverish) with combined excitement, over-tiredness and naked greed. And even those of us over the age of five all feel at some point, at least once, like throwing themselves on the ground and having what my Mum calls a ‘bit of a paddy’ until you can be put to bed. ‘It’ll all be better in the morning’. And of course it always is.

(Unless you’ve been drinking copious amounts of mulled wine, in which case the morning is invariably much worse. I call it the red wine phenomenon – the way that after a party, during the night, the bottles of red wine will get up, spill themselves over the carpet, and then reposition themselves on the table. How else to explain the stains that invariably cover anything expensive or sentimental? Stains, I should add, that were categorically not there when all concerned went to bed. And that’s without the steel band that has mysteriously set up shop behind your temples.)

So, yes. A strange time of year, no matter what your festive persuasion. An odd time of year. A strained time of year. A time for angst. A time for the old trick of holding the credit card bill away from you in an effort to make the amount look smaller. A time for over-crowded shops. A time for  tight waistbands and empty wallets.

But a magical time nonetheless. A time when simple old tunes can reduce people to tears. A time when everyone is seized by the ‘feeling of Christmas’: a nostalgic, over-priced yet heady mixture of cinammon, the scrunch of wrapping paper, the shower of dried pine needles on the carpet, the coagulated mess of cold gravy, longing for snow that never appears, bad repeats on TV, a time when starry nights take on a new poignance and meaning, a time of alcohol in the afternoon, a time of double cream and hang the arteries, a time for excess, a time for scrawling ‘we must catch up in the new year’ in a hundred cards.

I don’t think any of us ever experience Christmas directly. Scrooge and Dickens got it all wrong – there is no ‘Christmas present’. There is only the long shadow of Christmases-past, all rolled up into one intangible ball of memories. And the notion of Christmas future, with the unsettling idea of Christmases with a different cast of people – some losses, some gains. We all have half a mind on the stocking in front of us, and half a mind cast back to the feeling that we had when we were small and woke up: “He’s been!!!” The Christmas tree we put up is not a real tree, it’s a tribute to the massive imposing fir trees of our memories and a foundation on which to build the strong glossy pines of the future. The excitement over toiletries gift-sets from Next (which appear, along with everything else, so incredibly alluring and wonderfully mysterious once wrapped in shiny paper) is not excitement at being able to spray yourself with this year’s ‘pink’ fragrance. It’s the excitement from years ago, when the desire to own a Tiny Tears doll was so great for one particular Open Diary writer that she broke down one afternoon in late December, sobbing that she couldn’t wait until Christmas, just couldn’t, couldn’t do it!

There is in fact no such thing as christmas day; the experience for all of us is filtered, is seen through a frosted pane on which are etched the images of things that were and things that will be. But that is what makes it so marvellous. That’s what makes Christmas so much more than a 24 hour period. Why can’t I watch ‘It’s a wonderful life’ or even a film like ‘Scrooged’ without weeping copiously? Why do carol concerts make my heart sing? Why does the smell of a Christmas tree make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up? Why does the taste of the first mince pie of the year – even though I don’t even like them that much – make me exclaim aloud that Christmas has arrived? It’s because Christmas doesn’t take place within time. It’s bigger and more nebulous than that. There are as many different Christmases as there are people in the world who mark it, each of them different. Each of them real. Each of them is individual. Each of them is special. 

This is also why we’re so consistently disturbed to hear about other people’s Christmas traditions – ‘you don’t get a satsuma in your stocking?’ ‘you open your presents after lunch?’ This is, as far as we’re concerned, not Christmas at all, but some other strange tradition that shares some common features.

And that’s why,  for me, the real essence of Christmas is not in the chocolate and the lethargy of the day itself, but is instead in the traditions we create, the memories we have and the memories we make and look forward to.

At the risk of being politically incorrect, I would like to wish all opendiary readers a very merry Christmas, and a safe and happy new year. Christmas isn’t on the 25th. It’s now. It’s then. It’s coming. Enjoy it.

with love,
therumtumtugger
xxx