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.
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.
