• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Yorkshire Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
    The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

    Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

    schools bill

    Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

    Emmanuel Macron

    French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    cost of living march london

    Trade union movement marches to demand better

    European Union

    After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Refugee Week

    Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Coronavirus
    • Labour
    • Starmer
    • NI Protocol
    • Brexit
    • Culture
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Recipes
    • Sport
    Nostell Priory, Wakefield

    Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

    Headingley Cricket Stadium

    A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

    Bettys' Fat Rascals

    Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

    'Woke' beliefs

    Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Red Ladder

    Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

    Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

    Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

    Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

    Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

    Queen cakes fit for a Queen

    Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Sport
  • Business
    • All
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
    Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

    International Women in Engineering Day 2022

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    conservative party

    The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

    Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

    Money on the floor - £20 notes

    The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

    Financial problems

    Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

    An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

    Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

    Jar with money cascading out of it

    Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

    Trending Tags

      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
    • Region
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • News
      • All
      • Brexit
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      Trending Tags

      • Johnson
      • Coronavirus
      • Labour
      • Starmer
      • NI Protocol
      • Brexit
      • Culture
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
    • Politics
    • Opinion
    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Culture
      • Dance
      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Recipes
      • Sport
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

      Trending Tags

        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Region
      No Result
      View All Result
      Yorkshire Bylines
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home Lifestyle

      Keeping the Christmas spirit alive

      Ann Moody writes about Christmas traditions and how to keep the Christmas spirit alive in these divisive times.

      Ann MoodybyAnn Moody
      21-12-2021 08:22
      in Lifestyle
      photo of a living room dressed up in christmas decorations

      Photo by Lynda Hinton on Unsplash

      217
      VIEWS
      Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
      ADVERTISEMENT

      It’s the weekend before Christmas and, as I do every year, I cast my mind back to my experiences of this time of year as a child. It was magical, one of the few times my dad was home, and he spared no effort to make Christmas wonderful, partly to assuage his guilt for not being there for the rest of the year, but also because he just loved the kitsch of it all.

      Everyone has a story

      We cooked Christmas puddings and made mincemeat in October. In mid-December, we had the annual holly picking day. The holly had to have berries and extra points were awarded if it was nicked from a private hedge. My dad, a lawyer, relished in frightening his accomplices with the threat of prison if we were caught and the fact that we believed him made the whole affair unbearably daring.

      Then there would be the stop in the village pub, roaring fire, beautiful old English village, thatched cottages, flint walls. Finally, we would finish at the same restaurant, owned by a French man who had one waiter, a Chinese guy who barely spoke English but who had a fabulous smile and who was always there, year after year.

      We ate French onion soup to start followed by roast turkey and all the trimmings. As we got progressively fuller, I would sink into a childhood reverie of happiness as we exchanged tales of holly picking derring-do and the Christmas lights over the restaurant bar winked in time to Sinatra classics. The school holidays had begun, Christmas was only a week away and we were all together.

      Different horizons

      My childhood Christmases were very British affairs, but of course every country has its own versions.

      I now live abroad, in France. Christmas is celebrated just as beautifully here, but with different traditions. The food is different (delicious, but different), they don’t do the essential three C’s (cards, carols and crackers) but there are wonderful Christmas markets and beautiful decorations. As I ordered the capon from a local farm last week I sensed the magic, the music, festive foliage decorating the doors and a big smile wishing me season’s greetings.

      Close friends came to stay and we went to see the Christmas lights. Being a secular country, religious symbols are not displayed. That’s considered a choice for the home so the decorations are all very inclusive, Father Christmas, snow, sleighs etc and the festive time of year belongs to everyone, including the considerable portion of the town who are not Christian.

      photo of Yorkshire Christmas spice loaf
      Food

      Spice things up this Christmas

      byMeryl White
      19 December 2021

      Take a step back

      I think the UK pulls this off well too and it got me thinking how toxic certain conversations have become everywhere, and how we generalise about other countries and other belief systems. We demonise each other, we forget how similar we really are.

      Being disappointed at my native country’s current course doesn’t mean I don’t love England. I’m vocal at my desperation because I love my homeland.

      I live abroad, but that doesn’t impact the influence, the history, the family tree I can trace back to Jacobean times, the formative years, the family and old friends who are there and the cultural links that still bind me to the country of my birth.

      Pro or anti vax, remain or leave, women’s rights and trans rights, prochoice and prolife, QAnon conspiracy theories … we’re all fighting a carefully cultivated culture war designed to divide us, and it’s the same everywhere.

      It always existed to a certain degree. My saccharine memories of when I was young don’t include the hate-fuelled speeches of Enoch Powell, the overt racism, sexism and homophobia of that era which was everywhere, especially on TV before alternative comedy was ever a thing. Things are so much better now.

      But social media cannot be uninvented and we all have a duty to be aware of its less-benign consequences. The internet can create a state of permanent dispute.

      Hope for the future

      I love my adopted country and I also love my natal one. Neither is better or worse than the other; we are in fact incredibly similar. The people of both countries are on the whole inclusive, tolerant and open to other cultures, despite the best efforts of certain politicians and media outlets to convince us otherwise.

      As I write, Liz Truss has just replaced Frost as the EU negotiator, and the full effects of Brexit will reveal themselves in January along with a new round of English/EU rivalry and a bit of extra venom put aside for the England vs France sideshow.

      Before the conflict kicks off again, which it inevitably will when the celebrations are over, let’s reflect on the words of Yorkshire MP Jo Cox:

      “We have far more in common than that which divides us.”

      Happy Christmas everyone.

      ADVERTISEMENT
      Previous Post

      Advent calendar 21: politicisation of appointments

      Next Post

      The Tory party has more to worry about than Johnson’s personal flaws

      Ann Moody

      Ann Moody

      A politics graduate, Ann worked as an intern and then Newsdesk assistant for the ABC News London office. She had a brief career in countertrade before returning to the world of media as the CEO of the Directors Guild of Great Britain. There she stayed until she had her first child and decided to move abroad. She now lives in France with her French husband Pierre, two cats and a dog. She has two grown up children Anastasia and Sam.

      Related Posts

      Nostell Priory, Wakefield
      Music

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      byJohn Heywood
      26 June 2022
      Headingley Cricket Stadium
      Region

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      byOliver Lawrie
      24 June 2022
      Bettys' Fat Rascals
      Food

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      byMeryl White
      23 June 2022
      'Woke' beliefs
      Culture

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      bySue Wilson MBE
      20 June 2022
      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0
      Music

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      byLucy Pickering
      20 June 2022
      Next Post
      Tory_party-more_to_worry_about

      The Tory party has more to worry about than Johnson’s personal flaws

      Want to support us?

      Can you help Yorkshire Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

      DONATE

      Sign up to our newsletter

      If you would like to receive the Yorkshire Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

      NEWSLETTER

      LATEST

      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      27 June 2022
      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022

      MOST READ

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Photo credit Robert Sharp / englishpenLicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

      The Davis Downside Dossier

      1 January 2021

      BROWSE BY TAGS

      antivaxxers Charity climate change Coronavirus Cost of living Creative industries Crime Cummings Democracy Devolution education Equality Farming Fishing hgv History Immigration Johnson Journalism Labour Local Democracy Mental Health mining money NHS NI Protocol omicron Pies pollution poverty PPE Public Health Review shortage social media Starmer tax travel Ukraine Yorkshire
      Yorkshire Bylines

      Yorkshire Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Yorkshire and beyond.

      Learn more about us

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Contact
      • About
      • Letters
      • Donate
      • Privacy
      • Bylines network
      • Shop

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • News
        • Brexit
        • Education
        • Environment
        • Health
        • Home Affairs
        • Transport
        • World
      • Politics
      • Opinion
      • Lifestyle
        • Culture
        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Donate
      • The Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers
      • The Davis Downside Dossier
      • The Digby Jones Index
      • Newsletter sign up
      • Cartoons by Stan
      • Authors

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password?

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In