Graeme Whitfield
MY general rule of thumb on deciding whether or not I will partake in a festive tradition is: would I do this at the height of summer?
Would I listen to Fairytale of New York in the middle of August, for example? Yes, of course I would; it’s a wonderful song at any time of the year.
Would I watch The Muppet Christmas Carol in June? Without doubt, as it’s probably the best on-screen adaptation of Charles Dickens ever made.
There isn’t an actor alive today who has the dramatic range of Kermit the Frog.
Conversely, would I eat Christmas pudding or mince pies in the summer? No, they’re rank and people only stuff them down their gullets because they are deemed to be festive. As such, they shouldn’t be eaten in December either.
I don’t wear Christmas jumpers in the summer holidays for reasons of temperature but they’re daft and wasteful all year round so you won’t see me wearing one on Monday.
As for letting the current Monarch
bang on at me for 20 minutes on the telly box, you can very much count me out.
But it’s worth bringing a degree of nuance to bear in these matters, so I have recently extended my festive traditions rule to take in things that I do a lot at Christmas and not much at other times – but probably should.
The next few days will see me spending long periods with family members, I will almost certainly play some board games and will eat a lot of chocolate and cheese (probably separately, though I am making no promises).
I can’t honestly say I do those things all year round but they’re pretty jolly so perhaps the lesson is that I should do more of them all in 2024.
As an avowed atheist, it could be argued that I have little authority to hold forth on what people should and shouldn’t do at Christmas.
But it feels very much that the festive period has morphed these days into an all-things-to-all-men sort of affair where people can opt in to the bits they like and eschew those that don’t appeal.
If you want to celebrate Jesus’ birth, go for it; if you just fancy doing something that makes life a little more pleasant when it’s dark and cold outside, what is the harm?
I would certainly sign up to the festive notion of “peace on earth and goodwill to all” as both of those things appear to be in pretty short supply in the world right now and we could do with a lot more of them.
So Happy Christmas to all – whatever that means to you and however you celebrate.