Since Victorian times there's been an unwritten Christmas tradition in Britain. Anyone who says anything negative about the season will be called ‘a Scrooge’. Regardless of any concerns about the estate of Charles Dickens taking legal action over copyright, you're only allowed to be upbeat. EastEnders is bad, Morecambe & Wise are good. Disagree and Santa's little helpers will throw mistletoe at you. This was brought home to me last weekend when I went Christmas shopping in Lewes with my lovely wife. Whilst she stocked up on glittery cards, I distracted myself with my mobile phone. After a while I noticed she'd put her potential purchases down, mainly because she couldn't hold them at the same time as folding her arms in a threatening manner. "Stop tweeting", she told me. "I don't want to read your sarcastic comments when I get home". She was right, of course. This year, more than ever, there seems to be an inclination to treat Christmas with excess humour. To follow the 2012 trend I should have been offering my wit to everyone as we walked through the shops, not muttering to a tiny audience on the internet. There's postmodern irony wherever you look. The gingerbread latte has become a long-established festive drink. Sparkly shirts are now essential fashion for your office party. All mum's hard work will be ignored... but that's just the way things are, ho ho. Better stuff the turkey with indigestion tablets, eh? When you've finished laughing, you can move on to enjoying a wry smile. Listen to yuletide songs that talk about escaping the crowds to find a few minutes of peace, of battling through the supermarket aisles but discovering the true meaning of Christmas regardless. Watch seasonal TV programmes where everything falls apart before everything comes together. It's all wrong. Wrong, I tell you. We need to get back to a traditional Christmas.So let's start with the Winter Solstice, a festival so significant that the ancient Brits toiled for many years to build Stonehenge as a place to celebrate it. Winter was a scary time in those days; reaching the solstice meant you stood a half-decent chance of surviving for another year without finding your family marked as tumuli on an Ordnance Survey map. Then there's 25th December itself, which commemorates Jesus being put in a feeding trough by his affianced mother because there was no room for him anywhere else. Christmas, therefore, is traditionally about being terrified. About working long hours to create something that's ultimately pointless. About awkward moments with the relatives. About important plans that didn't turn out as expected.
But that’s not to say we should be miserable now. In fact, I have the perfect role model. A man who laughed because he was genuinely happy, not because he was mocking the festive season. A man who realised Christmas was an excellent opportunity to help others. A generous man, a friendly man... and a man who enjoyed a joke, too. It’s Ebenezer Scrooge.
First published on vivalewes.com 13th December 2012: http://vivalewes.com/
