“It’s the most wonderful time of the year”, sings Andy Williams, in the shmaltzy festive song that always makes me lunge for the radio. Before I can switch station to Yesterday in Parliament or a rerun of the Covid Inquiry, he is already carolling: “It’s the hap-happiest season of all.”
Really? For anyone over 20, I’d say ’tis the season of blisters, headaches, sleepless nights, dawn raids and overdrafts, all to avoid the risk of social death and family breakdown by being considered a Scrooge.
Statistics show that moving house, divorce and getting married are high among the most stressful events in people’s lives. Strangely, they make no mention of Christmas shopping, even though it’s one of the most competitive, physically exhausting, nerve-racking, protracted and pricey activities known to humankind.
Added to which, unlike changing address or finding a new spouse, we have to face it every year. By the time the gifts we have agonised over have been opened, there are barely 11 months left before we need to get going again.
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Health tsars annually denounce our calorific intake on Christmas Day, yet they ignore the need to replenish our reserves after weeks of hunter-gathering that would put our Cro-Magnon ancestors to shame. Even if we’ve bought online, the headlong dash down the stairs several times a day to pre-empt the courier’s knock burns off the pounds like a blowtorch.
On reluctant forays into the city centre’s glitziest emporia (better known as John Lewis, the Lego Store and TK Maxx), I find myself swept to one side as packs of shoppers, usually women, descend on the shelves like hyenas on the scent of blood. They work by the team principle, not being confident enough to make decisions on their own, but galvanised by collective adrenaline and a deadline drawing scarily close.
As they advance through the store, opinions are loudly offered on the suitability of whatever’s being held up for inspection. If there’s a chorus of approbation it is added to the basket, regardless of whether it’s likely to please the recipient. All that matters in these circumstances is crossing off another name on the list. Hence why keeping receipts is now as crucial an administrative Christmas task as finding the address book and sending cards.
In M&S I overheard one woman in a phone conversation that made me think of an air traffic controller guiding a rookie pilot onto the runway in Hong Kong. Sadly it was a one-sided dialogue, but the gist was plain: “Would he like Lana Del Rey?” she asked, sounding harassed, all the while blocking the aisle and making the tide of consumers part like the Red Sea around her.
Evidently Lana Del Ray was unacceptable. “Taylor Swift?” Same response then, one assumes, a list of other suggestions. “No, he doesn’t like milk chocolate!” A pause for digesting further advice beamed by mobile phone mast then finally, thankfully, she got the inspiration she needed. “A scarf? Now that might work…” and off she beetled to the men’s department.
Perhaps that’s what we all need: a voice at the end of the line offering ideas, keeping us calm, putting things into perspective. To save the country’s sanity, Samaritans should consider opening a festive hotline for panic-stricken shoppers.
For those of us who don’t enjoy shopping at any time of year, Christmas is always going to be fraught. By far the biggest strain, however, is not the crowds or muzak, the overheated stores or queues as long as passport control, but simply the pressure to get it right. Nobody wants to disappoint the person who will be ripping off the wrapping paper. I’ll never forget a young relative on Christmas morning exclaiming “Just what I didn’t want!” as he opened one of his mountain of presents.
Tactful gift receiving is a skill all children need to acquire, as when my granddaughter could not conceal her dismay on getting a present she didn’t like. “Why would they give me that?” she asked, as if it had been chosen expressly to upset her. Learning that there are times when little white lies can be a kindness is surely as important a Christmas tradition as the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.
Enduring pandemonium in shops or angsting over what to choose is, of course, a definition of stress only for those whose nearest and dearest already have pretty much everything they need. Spare a thought instead for the families who cannot afford to splurge. The proliferation of charities collecting toys for children who will otherwise get none – not to mention food banks – feels like something from A Christmas Carol: Dickensian in the worst sense. It is a reminder that for many, these are seriously hard times. If they could simply cancel Christmas, like Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham, I’m sure some folk would gladly do so.
The letter addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole sent this year by 11-year-old Liam, whose family is homeless, touched many hearts: “This Christmas please can I have a forever home,” he wrote. “I don’t want any new toys I just want all my old toys that are in storage.” He ended his letter: “Everyone is sad living here and I just want us to be happy again.”
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Liam is absolutely right: being happy is the essence of the season. And perhaps that’s why buying presents isn’t easy. Each of them is a shorthand for love and joy, and that’s far too much emotional freight for PJs or a Barbie or an X-box to bear.
I suspect it’s also why so few choose to follow the example of those who, instead of giving gifts, donate to charity. Nobody can argue with putting money to much better use. For me, however, the darkness and dreichness of mid-winter cries out for a bit of good cheer, as typified by the sight of parcels collected at the base of a sparkling tree. What you spend is up to you; but denying the instinctive urge to give to others feels a little bleak and chilly for me.
Despite the schlepping and the swithering Christmas shopping involves, I’m beginning to think that if it makes you really appreciate who and what you have, maybe Andy Williams isn’t so wrong after all. It is the most wonderful time of the year.
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