Wednesday 25 November 2020

Christmas Present

Hello, dear readers!

I don’t know if it’s just me. I’m not sure if it’s my ever-advancing years lending me a fresh perspective on time and its relative passage. Whatever it is, this crazy and increasingly unprecedented year has flown by.

There’s a saying around these parts, oft used when someone is feeling a little down over some setback or other. “Be reet.” We’ll say in our broadest Yorkshire twang. “Soon be Christmas.” And do you know what? It will.

Shopping Daze
At the time of writing there is exactly one calendar month between today and the big day itself. One whole month. That’s four and a bit weeks to think about presents and food and all the rest of the shenanigans. It seems like a generous amount of time, but you and I know it will soon pass, leaving me in my usual, stereotypically male state of last-minute panic.


To be fair, I have little excuse for this customary lack of planning. The fact that Christmas is coming and the geese (along with fowl of all persuasions. Let’s not be bird-ist here) are worrying about their waistlines (who isn’t?) simply cannot be ignored.

In With The Old
There are the annual arguments over The Fairytale Of New York and its censorship. Michael Buble (or Mickey Bubbles, as I‘ve been known to call him) being revived from his hibernation pod next to Cliff. The last winner of X-factor  no doubt getting ready for their one big money spinner before sliding back to obscurity.

On the supermarket shelves there’s the appearance of mince pies, stollen, boxes of crackers (both the cheese bearing kind and the pull-y variety) and all the rest of the festive yumminess. There are also the slightly odder choices. Xmas dinner in a tin is, apparently, a thing. I’m not saying a good thing, not by a long chalk, but it exists. Thankfully, I’m yet to see any sprout flavoured crisps which, thanks to my ever lovely wife, Tina, haunted our house like a foul smelling ghost of Xmas past all last year. I have seen Ultimate Roast Potato crisps though. Yup, that’s right: slices of potato flavoured potato. What will they think of next?

No Returns
All of this has been a festive fact of life since about midsummer, so yeah, it’s no surprise that silly season is about to kick into overdrive. Of course this year will be a touch different, thanks to the unwanted present that is COVID-19 (and boy, am I getting tired of typing that word out).

There will be no trips to the pub. No cooking for a party of nine. No round of visits to household after household to swap gifts. No grand tour of shops to navigate as we stock up on said presents (there’s always a bright side). In fact, Xmas this year is looking like it will be a far more simple and intimate affair. Dinner for two and a round of Skype calls.

Well, it did. Until yesterday.

That was when our beloved government decided to give us all the present of a Christmas unlocking to put in our stockings. The terms of this seem to be reasonably generous. For the five days between the 23rd and 27th of December, three households may meet up in a Christmas bubble (and does anyone else think they’ve missed a golden opportunity to call it a Christmas bauble? No? Just me?) with no limit to the number of individuals per household.

In order to get to these Xmas bubbles, travel will also be unlocked across the UK over the same time period, meaning cross border travel will be allowed. Xmas bubbles will not, however, be able to visit pubs and restaurants. Once a Xmas bubble has been formed, that is the bubble, and a second bubble cannot, for instance, be formed on the 27th, after a family meet up on the 25th.

A Merry Little Christmas
It all sounds pretty good. A taste of festive freedom after a period of lockdown. A chance to see our loved ones at a time we will be missing them the most. I have to say, however, that I have my doubts.


Being one half of a married couple, there are two families for myself and Tina to think about during the Yuletide celebrations. There’s my family. My mum and dad, my sister, Janine, and her family; and my sister Leanne and her tribe. Then there’s Tina’s family. Her brother Nigel and his wife, her sister Jen and her family, and of course her mother. This makes six households with ourselves being the seventh. It’s a cake that just will not slice, even if we count the fact that Leanne and my parents are already in a childcare bubble (and I’m not sure we can).

No, some hard decisions will have to be made and at least some of our Christmas visits will need to be socially distanced ones. How we work this, I’m not sure, but in these less than perfect times, some compromise seems unavoidable, and as an officially vulnerable person my instinct is to err on the side of caution.

Christmas Yet To Come

A traditional belly-popping Christmas dinner with family and scrap over some board game or other accompanied by lashings of alcoholic beverages is a dream I’m sure I’m not alone in holding. But at what cost? Is a turkey dinner really worth people getting sick. Is it worth another spike, and the deaths that go with it? I’m not saying that people shouldn’t celebrate. I’m not saying folk shouldn’t get together, but an abandonment of all restrictions within expanded groups and yet another onus placed on the general public by a government who seem incapable of following the rules they set and no way of monitoring the following of said rules seems… unwise. After all, as has been pointed out, the virus isn’t about to put its feet up with a port and the Doctor Who Xmas special. It will still be about. Hunting down our most vulnerable members of society.



So, yeah, I can’t and won’t speak for anyone else, but personally I’m going to have a word with all concerned and step lightly into Christmas. It might make me sound a little Grinch-y, but I will make sure we see everyone over the festive period, even if some of it is at a distance. It might not be an ideal Christmas, but for many, it will secure the Christmases yet to come.



Until next time…

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