Merry Christmas!

I know I said that we would be off to the tropical island of Langkawi this week. My essential companion, better known as Jane, has persuaded me that you, the readers, deserve better than that.

She says that I should, at least, acknowledge the festive season and wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. You will not believe how much discussion we have put into this, I am the most humbuggish person ever born into the world around Christmas time but, reluctantly, I have agreed to give it a go. Talk about take me out of my comfort zone!

I was born two days after Jesus, albeit with 1,959 years in between. This week, therefore, we will look at some things Christmas. I know, I hear you, what’s this got to do with travelling. To be honest, nothing, but tenuously it is linked to my journey through life and will have everything there is to do with Christmas. Mulled wine sitting to the side, a tin of Quality Street opened with wrappers strewn across the floor and Christmas carols coming out of the smart speaker. Got the picture? Here we go then.

What is Christmas about? Is it the smiles on children’s faces as they are forced to meet a white bearded ogre in a red coat? Or is it the repulsive consumerism that takes over our High Street and online shopping outlets? Or is it the commemoration of a baby boy born in a Roman colony a smidgin over 2,000 years ago? My belief is that we take as much out of this time of year as we wish, and we are all entitled to mark whatever joy that suits our personal circumstances. As far as I am concerned, I would cancel the damned thing as a public holiday.

Fine, if Christians around the world want to commemorate the arrival of their Saviour that’s entirely up to them, but don’t include me in this. If I had my way I would move the public holidays from this time of year, where they are no used to man nor beast, to the summer. They would serve far more purpose during a season with lighter nights and, in theory, warmer days, wouldn’t you agree. For some bizarre reason, known only to the great holiday panjandrum in the sky, we only have one public holiday during summer, and that right at the end when it appears we stand more chance of snow than sunshine. I refuse to call them bank holidays now by the way, it doesn’t seem to make any difference whether it is a holiday or no, you will not find a bank that is open, so strip them of the right to have days off named in their honour.

One of my earliest recollections is being taken to a department store in Colchester where I was forced to queue up to see a terrible frightening figure in a red oversized jacket with a white cotton-wool beard sellotaped to his face. It was hideous and, to be frank, I have hated Christmas ever since.

Another event that left me scarred was my first ever trip to a pantomime, I think I have only been to about four since, to see Jack and the Beanstalk. I mean, and I know I was born middle-aged, but who the hell would take a prize cow off to market and sell it for some magic beams. Talk about saw him coming. Then, in a bid to prove to his mother, or whoever it was, he planted them and a stalk grew right up to the sky. Then we were meant to believe that Jack, who it has to be said was a few beans short of a bean pod, climbed this most virulent of plants and found himself entering the world of a dreadful giant.

I don’t ever remember any mention of beans, runners or otherwise, growing on this stalk, do you? That doesn’t make sense to me, I have mixed with allotment types and all they talk about is crop yields of whatever they have planted. What a good year it’s been for raspberries or gooseberries or strawberries; what a poor year it has been for potatoes, radishes and parsnips, so on and so forth. Whatever, don’t they drone on! Mind you, can there ever be a good year for radishes? I can’t think of a worse creation. Well, Jack my boy, you swapped the best family cow for a handful of beans and there is no mention of a bumper harvest. Also, what allotmenteers would ever give up an opportunity to enter such a plant in the local horticultural show to win the prize for biggest stalk? That’s it, none of them, and then all you will hear about for the rest of the year is how so-and-so cheated his way to the first prize of a 50 pence book voucher from the garden centre.

Instead, Jack finds himself in a home belonging to a rather angry giant. Mind you, wouldn’t you be a bit miffed as well? This young oaf has just climbed the equivalent of Japanese knotweed of the day, which has punched a hole through your floor. He has then had a bit of a wander around, without being invited. I wonder if, thinking about it, this was the first ever reference to the destructive knotweed we hear so much of today, the scourge of every homeowner in the country if it takes over. Jack, my lad, it was all down to you. Shane upon your very being.

It was at this point during the performance that I felt a bestial fear creeping in. “Fe, fi, foe, fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman.” I demanded of my parents that they remove me from the auditorium in that instant. I was never keen to go back and haven’t seen JATB again to this day, and nor will I. By the way, I wasn’t so pretentious to use the word auditorium at about three years old although, of course, it goes without saying that I would have been well versed in it at the time, I just hid my vocabulary under a bushel. Or was that a beanstalk!

These days, all I want to do is hide up during winter, I have no desire to go out and get bladdered, eat a dinner too big for my stomach weighing in at about 20,000 calories or whatever it is, or wrap presents and place them under something that should be in the woods. Honestly, what is the point! Long live Scrooge, prior to his conversion and may the Grinch haunt Christmas feast halls for evermore.

Let’s have a look at some of the traditions shall we. A good place to start would be, back to my original gripe, the date. Why on Earth is it held on 25th December? It goes back to the birth of a baby boy who was meant to grow up to be King of the Jews; he wasn’t even a Christian. Apparently, his Mum and Dad, Joe and Mary, had travelled to Bethlehem to register their family with the Roman big cheese of the time. No, that has been disproved, the Romans never held censuses in the middle of winter, so let’s move it to summertime, I might be able to get on board with it then. And another thing, Jesus was supposedly born in a stable yet was surrounded by cows. Every Reception schoolchild knows that horses live in stables and cows in byres! It really goes back to Celtic times around Europe. They already had a midwinter celebration to mark the end of those dark nights so the Pope, or whoever decreed it, thought he would tack their own festival onto the already existing pagan one, Yule in many places.

Christmas trees: these appear to be a bit more recent, although it is thought that pagans brought evergreen shrubbery indoors around the middle of winter to add a bit of cheer to an otherwise drab and featureless hall. Probably holly, with its red berries shining, a bit of ivy and some mistletoe. It was the Lutherans in modern day Germany who first thought to decorate their interiors with a spruce tree. Overtime they would hang pretty baubles and sweetmeats from the branches. I wonder if this is where the term, “To spruce up the home” comes from?

Mistletoe: this is another one that goes back to our pagan forebears. The Norse goddess, Frigg, after the death of her son, Baldur, declared that the plant should be seen as a marker of fertility and it was bad luck to turn down the offer of a kiss thereunder. If, however, someone moved in for a crafty snog after the berries had died away the bad luck would be on them. How the death of her beloved son made the plant into a sign of fertility is beyond me, especially as he was poisoned by a concoction made from its berries. It is said that her tears changed the parasite from a death giver into a fertility enhancer. Oh, those pagans! Do you know, and to the best of my knowledge, I have never kissed anyone under the mistletoe, with or without berries.

Christmas crackers: a big thank you to Tom Smith, a London confectioner, who when travelling to Paris discovered sugar coated almond bonbons wrapped in tissue paper. He brought the idea home and, initially, sales boomed. As with many good things, though, the bottom fell out of the market, and he needed to evolve his creation. After playing around for a while, he added such things as love notes, tiny little baubles and, in time, a couple of strips of card that when pulled apart would set of a tiny explosion. His son, Walter, added colourful paper hats and, slowly but surely, they have developed into what we know and love today. It is only in relatively recent times that they have become synonymous with Christmas. In times of yore people didn’t need much of a second invitation to pull a cracker. Any reason for celebration would see crackers being brought out. Major national events, birthdays, royal weddings, royal babies and many more.

Anyway, here are a couple of free cracker jokes for you to enjoy, or otherwise. I think I made these up myself, but I daresay you will have heard them before.

Q: Why can’t Christmas trees knit?
A: Because they keep dropping their needles.

Q: Who burned the Christmas cakes?
A: King Elfred the Great.

I’ve got another one as well which is, most definitely, not mine. I like it though. It was created by a man named Ben Smith from Chelmsford who submitted it to a competition looking for cracker jokes and won.

Q: Why isn’t Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor releasing a Christmas book this year?
A: Because he hasn’t got a title.

Christmas Carols: this one is down to the old pagans again. If you went a carolling in the olden days it usually meant that you were taking part in a circular dance around the time of the solstice, not sure if it is specific to summer or winter, but it wasn’t until much later that Christians adopted the word to describe their own songs of joy and celebration to mark the birth of the Saviour. Well, who knew?

Turkey dinners: this also goes back to pagan times. Turkey is a relatively recent adoption as the main meat, but before that winter solstice celebrants, when marking such festivals as Saturnalia, would eat tonnes of meat for their meals, following the mass winter slaughter of farm animals. During English medieval times festive tables would be full of boars’ heads and geese. After turkeys were brought back from North America they were soon taken on as the main meat of the season.

Pigs in blankets: this appears to be a recent thing, nothing to do with paganism. To start with, a pig in a blanket was a pork sausage wrapped in a pastry blanket which makes sense. Then, as a Christmas treat, someone decided to replace the pastry with a slice of bacon and that is where we are today. North of the border, apparently, they are referred to as pigs in kilts. Interesting, given that nothing is meant to be worn under the kilt, so the euphemistic sausage conjures up all sorts of frightening images.

I think that is where we shall leave it for this year. We will now take a break for a couple of weeks and will return on Saturday 3rd January 2026. I take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and, hopefully, an extremely prosperous 2026. See you on the other side.