Christma: How to enjoy Christmas

Christmas is supposed to be dull, enjoy the novelty of utter boredom!

How to keep your Christmas
spirit when all about you are
losing theirs – it’s an annual
conundrum, particularly as you
get older and less inclined to
make any effort whatsoever. The
War on Christmas, as anyone not
watching “The Nativity: Facts,
Fictions and Faith” on Fox News
at this very moment is well
aware, isn’t prosecuted by a lose
collective of socialists, atheists and
“alternative” religions. No, the
real war is being fought by the
forces of Christmas capitalism,
those which burn joy out of the
season with the intensity of a Star
Wars lightsaber (25% off until
New Year’s Day – just enter code
YOURKIDHASTOOMANYTOYSALRE
ADY).
It is pointless, in these
circumstances, to look back fondly
on the days when the only shops
open on Christmas Day were the
emergency pharmacy and a single
paper shop two towns over,
inspiring the kind of bulk-buying
the week before that gave
Christmas the quality of a well-
stocked but still quite panicky
siege.
Neither is it prudent to
misremember the presents we
used to get. For no reason I can
fathom, I have a clear memory of
playing one year with a toy car
made out of a cork adorned with
pins and old buttons, an image I
have a horrible feeling I’ve stolen
from Twopence to Cross the
Mersey, Helen Forrester’s account
of growing up in the slums of
Liverpool in the 1930s and about
as far from my days in 1980s
Buckinghamshire as you can get.
It’s true: the most exciting
element of Christmas used to be
the “snow” beneath the tree,
made of polystyrene packing
material, which, I remember,
thrillingly retained one’s teeth
marks when you bit in. But if
there hadn’t been presents
stacked on top of said snow,
meltdowns would have certainly
ensued.
Anyway, I’m not just talking about
presents. We are gathered here
today to discuss the texture of this
holiday as a whole. The entire
point of Christmas is that it’s
supposed to be boring; you get an
hour of excitement first thing and
then the day devolves into an
endless cycle of cooking, small
talk, snoring relatives, over-heated
rooms with no escape and – in
England, at least – the Queen’s
Speech, an annual lowlight that
reminds you of the virtue of every
other day of the calendar year
when you are not made privy to
Her Majesty’s thoughts.
Then comes the slow, dull glide
into evening, with its massive
sense of anticlimax – like the
worst Sunday-night-before-school
feeling, tinged with senses of loss,
aging and the terrible, terrible
transience of it all.
How to preserve it, this magical
experience, which we may call the
integrity of the occasion? Much as
the annual Ugly Sweater party
annoys , it is at least a gesture
towards some earlier aspect of
Christmas, when fun wasn’t fun
so much as a bracing thing to test
your endurance.
I have a few suggestions.
Streaming The Interview or the
yule log: no. But downloading
choirboys singing Christmas carols
definitely helps – their shrill,
piping voices disturb the dust in
the basement of your soul and
excite vague feelings of sadness
and regret, which might
generously be called religious in
tone.
A dose of actual religion really
helps on Christmas Day, and you
need to get at least one radio
sermon in under you belt – I
would recommend the Archbishop
of Canterbury’s Christmas
address, even if you’re in the US –
to experience the horror-novelty
of time slowing to a crawl, letting
the words wash over you and
luxuriating in the fact that they
are not designed to titillate,
interest, excite or keep you tuned
in for 11 more episodes, while
Sarah Koenig ponders whether or
not to take up the facts of the
case.
The best tactic for preserving the
spirit of Christmas, then, is to
think of something you would
rather be doing – and revel in the
masochism of not doing it. The
season of over-indulgence should
ultimately be characterized by
self-denial. Do not pop out for
milk; do not watch Netflix, catch
up on Serial, read a book or play
Candy Crush all day. Instead, do
as God intended and play charades
until your eyes bleed and you beg
for mercy. Along with members of
your extended family, watch a
two-hour documentary about the
Second World War, making bland,
irrelevant comments about what a
terrible waste it all was and how
you didn’t know that about de
Gaulle.
Nap until you just can’t stand it
any more. Then hit the New Year
running, enlivened by the
unbelievable range of possibilities
at your disposal.