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I’ll be spending Christmas Day in Walthamstow, one of a group of six or perhaps more. Of course we’ll eat copiously and some of the time we’ll sprawl in front of the television like the Royle Family (sitcom, British) talking more than watching the screen and making disparaging comments when it does claim our attention. But for much of the time we’ll sit round a table playing one or other board game. Not Monopoly – that’s boring unless you’re playing for real money – but something like the Princes of Florence, where you create fourteenth century principalities, or the Stock Exchange, where you try to make money by manipulating share prices, or Lord of the Rings (guess what that’s about). And throughout we’ll drink just enough alcohol to keep us merry but not tipsy, a skill that most men acquire by middle age. I’ve checked with friends what they’ll be doing on The Day. Those who are partnered are of course spending it together and usually with one or other parents or siblings and other members of the extended family. Singles are either, like me, gathering with friends, or bunkering down alone with a stock of food and alcohol and the television schedules. For most it’s not a time to visit parents or brothers and sisters, because to do so either implies a regression to childhood or a sense of failure - I haven’t been able to find a companion to build a nest of my own, and so I come home to yours. As we keep being reminded, suicide rates rise at Christmas, as do divorces shortly afterwards. At least Christmas no longer depresses me, as it did sometimes in my twenties and occasionally in my thirties. As an adult, the time I enjoyed it most with my ex; in his early twenties, he was young enough to buy into the whole experience, which, for an Angeleno, meant houses buried under glowing Santas and enough flashing lights to divert planes from LAX, a Christmas tree groaning under tinsel and ornaments and Santa’s train with its dwarves and presents chugging endlessly round a track at its base. On the day itself, as on Thanksgiving a month previously, we would drive over to his family’s house where a cacophony of twenty aunts and cousins and spouses and children would open presents and eat and talk and dance well into the night. The year after we split up I was back in LA, this time with my mother on an around the world trip and they welcomed us both with the same joy as they had welcome me in the past. I tell my ex sometimes that he doesn’t appreciate his family as much as I do and he should - as others tell me I do not appreciate my mother as much as they do and I should. But only a few children succeed in first distancing themselves from their parents and then coming back as equals – as few parents succeed in seeing their children as totally separate from themselves. Since the ex and I split up I have prepared carefully for Christmas, knowing that I do not want to spend it alone. Last year I invited myself over to Chris and Antony; between lunch, a walk in the park and old films, the day passed quickly. But Antony died unexpectedly this year and rather than spend the day with Chris listening to echoes of the past, we have each gone our separate ways. But if Christmas no longer depresses, it does annoy, above all, the consumerism, the implication that we have to buy gifts for those we love. As I grow older, I find present-giving increasingly difficult. What do you buy someone who perhaps doesn’t have everything, but who has no room for anything more? Do you give them something permanent that they will have to find a place for – a picture or a book – something more personal that may not match their taste – a piece of clothing, an item of jewellery – or something ephemeral – a day out in Paris or the like? Gifts should be spontaneous – something you see one day in the middle of the year that you know the other person will like or something they mention they need that you go and buy the next day. Rest assured that I don’t hold this opinion because I am lazy and selfish and do not want to spend money on others (some of which may be true…). I also don’t like to receive gifts simply because it is the time of year in which I should get them. My heart has often sunk at the arrival of a parcel, not because I don’t appreciate the thought – I do, I do – but because I know that inside there is more stuff that I do not want and do not need. No, gifts should be rarities, not regularities - the rarer they are, the more heartfelt they are and the more they are appreciated. Christmas also annoys me because of its now almost total divorce from its Christian origins. That is an apparently paradoxical view coming from an atheist, but I would prefer an honest approach to the festival. We get drunk and stuff our faces – those of us who are lucky to do so, and who happily forget the homeless in our streets and the impoverished and starving in other countries – because two thousand years a child was born that some people believe was God. We should at least take the time to recognise that fact but few of us do. And while we’re playing the honesty game, let’s take it one step further and admit that Christmas is merely a Christian adaptation of two earlier festivals – the Roman Saturnalia and the commemmoration of the birth of the pre-Christian god Mithras. So, with the above thoughts in mind, let me propose a change. Firstly, let’s divorce consumerism from religion. Let Christians celebrate the birth of their baby if they want to, but for the rest of us 25th and 26th December should be ordinary working days. On the other hand, the New Year is worth celebrating (even if it should strictly be on 22nd December, the day on which days start getting longer), so let’s take a whole week off, which is what many people do at this time of year anyway. And while we’re making these changes, I’d like to ban Christmas (and Hannukah and whatever) cards and make it illegal to give anyone a gift during this period, but that’s probably going too far. All those in favour, let me know… In the meantime, enjoy the festive season, but don’t take it too seriously. If you’re on your own and want to be, that’s fine. If you don’t want to be and can’t see yourself inviting yourself over to friends, then call the Samaritans or visit your local church (yes, that’s what I said) or volunteer at an old people’s home or do something that will bring you in contact with other people. And if that’s not possible, then ignore the whole shebang because it’ll all be over in 24 hours. |
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| 30 December 2002 |
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© Martin Foreman |