Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Today, as I sit at my desk and write this, it’s Thursday 20th December, and they’re taking down the Christmas decorations in my office. Apparently there’s a rule that all Christmas decorations have to be taken down after Christmas.
The people who put up the decorations are mostly leaving work today until the New Year and they’re packing everything up. It feels weird to see everything going back in its boxes five days before Christmas actually happens.
This morning a man behind me on the hovercraft leant forward and asked me if I knew anything about telephones because he wanted to buy one for his grand-daughter for Christmas.
“Which one do you think I should buy her?” he asked me. I might have been able to answer that question on the car ferry, but there was definitely not enough time on the hovercraft.
They’ll turn up in June
This year we brought all the Christmas decorations down from the roof, as usual, and the Christmas tree lights have gone.
We can’t find them anywhere. That’s a bit of a handicap this time of year. I thought about it for not much more than a moment and went out to buy some more. I know the lights will turn up in June, but that’s just how it is.
The weather doesn’t help. I don’t mind cold weather at Christmas, and snow and ice are welcome, once I’ve crossed the Solent for the last time this year, as long as it’s all gone by the time I go back to work. But this rain is relentless. I feel like I’m back in the middle of summer again. As Harry Hill said, it’s been the wettest drought in history.
What’s Christmas really all about?
I’ve been surprised this year in the shops by just how unChristmassy everything is. There isn’t so much stuff there dedicated to Christmas.
I suppose it’s a sign of the times and the new austerity and the possibility that things might not get better for some time. Or maybe that’s just in my mind and I’m not noticing the happy holiday cheer as much as usual.
All these thoughts have made me wonder what Christmas is really all about. Every year there’s a chorus of grumbles about how the real spirit of Christmas has gone and it’s just a commercialised money-grab. But I remember my parents saying that far more years ago than I wish to work out, thank you very much. And nobody ever defined what the real spirit of Christmas is supposed to be anyway.
Mortgaging the year to come
It’s true that some people get far more than they deserve, and a lot of people have far too little. Some people, as always, will mortgage the year to come in order to put on a good show, and others will shut the door and keep quietly to themselves, as usual.
It’s also true that far more people have to work and families are no longer the fixed-for-life one-size-fits-all model that they used to be. When I remember some of the married couples in my road who loathed each other, but for whom separation or divorce just wasn’t an option it makes me cringe, not only for the awfulness of their lives, but more so for the bad education their children were getting.
I don’t even remember much charity being practised when I was young. The Carol Service collection was donated to the poor, and my mother organised events for charity, but they never raised the sort of amount that children in Need collects.
Singing and nativity plays and the presents
I don’t believe that many people think of Christmas in a religious way either. I apologise to any practising Christians here. Very few people believe in the religious stuff, although they like the singing and nativity plays and the presents.
I’ve decided that the real spirit of Christmas is the idea, deep in the centre of the darkest and dreariest part of the year when everything feels as bad as it can get, that we can buck the trend and be upbeat about Life, our families and the future.
We get the chance to park those worries for a while and concentrate on thinking about having a rest and some innocent enjoyment despite ourselves. We allow our better feelings and hopes to surface for a while, and we bathe in the warm glow that they produce, like the lights on our cheery and utterly impractical Christmas trees.
Seeing my house in daylight
Personally, I can’t wait for Christmas to come, and I’m going to have a wonderful time.
I won’t be thinking about money or work or commuting, I won’t have to get up too early in the morning, and I’ll be seeing my house in daylight more than once a week. I’ll be able to ignore all those things I should otherwise be having to do and spend some time doing things because I want to and because I can. I expect Santa feels the same way once Christmas Day finally arrives and his work is done.
It’s going to be lovely.
I hope your Christmases are wonderful and full of love and joy and hope and good things, and that those feelings will remain and sustain you until the weather gets warmer and the rain stops.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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