The Scariest Season of All

This is the season of Ba-humbuginess, of misanthropes everywhere to, if not stand together, at least unite against the group hysteria which forces fake joy onto a rather uncaring world. Thank you, Mr Dickens, for giving us Scrooge, the perfect misanthrope. If only you had left him alone, allowed him wallow in his pain, but no, you had to go and change him into a broken figure, sacrificed on the altar of sentimental intentions. By the end of the book, you have turned the season weird, adding too much tinsel, and a saccharine sweetness, which is too poisonous for many of us to swallow. For this part of the blog, I shall stand at Scrooge’s side and empathise with his pain. This is Christmas past. I am your ghostly guide.    

Think of the scariest things you can imagine; a Marmite sandwich, a latte made on soya milk, being stuck on a crumbling cliff edge five-hundred feet up, or worse still, being trapped in an elevator with an Instagram celebrity. Life is terrifying, at winter, scarier yet. The long, dark frozen nights mess with our heads in a way summer never does. Aside from insect bites and sunburn, there are very few threats during the hottest days of the year, other than an unwashed salad, devoured in some foreign land. But in winter; insects hibernate – and are now, no doubt, dreaming of sweet tasting, human blood to be lapped up in the springtime. Salad-tummy is a nightmare belonging to hotter times. Looked at logically, therefore, winter should be a time of ease, of hot chocolates and mulled wines. Except, humans have a way of distrusting the cosiest of here-and-nows. Thus Christmas was born.  

This season, you might think, was invented by a show-off who used the biggest lightshow in town to assert dominance, or by an advertising executive with shares in a toy company.

Not so, Christmas started life as the old Roman festival of Saturnalia, invented for a different deity than the one celebrated now. The Romans marked the darkest time of year by giving gifts, cheap, fun, jokey, token presents. This was a seriously fun festival, the gifts reflected this being crude, rude and in keeping with a season of drinking, gambling and debauchery. For one day of the year, slave owners served at the table of their slaves. I cannot think of a modern equivalent, or imagine that Donald Trump dons a waiter’s apron on Christmas day and doles out hundreds of burgers and Cokes to his staff, as they play tricks on him.

There were also religious sacrifices made in Roman times, but not human. You would have to hang out with the Druids and Celts for that. There is ample evidence of this. Simply ask an archaeologist about our bog bodies and our habit of sacrificing our kings on an annual basis, if you need confirmation. Judging by their choice of sacrifices, you can tell that women dominated religion in Ireland at the time and were our first priests, wielders of sharp blades, and good with a restraining knot. As the inventors of agriculture and religion they certainly held a strong position in Irish society. One look at the Brehon laws proves just how enlightened we were in many ways. Though human sacrifice might seem to contradict this theory. But if a little light bloodshed is your thing, what better time to indulge it, than in the darkest days of winter? What an appropriate time to tie somebody to a stone altar and, using a sharp blade, a strong rope, or a blunt instrument, offer them up to a Sun god who might never return if not properly appeased.

At a time when there were no James Bond re-runs on tv, I’m sure these sacrifices would have drawn a large, local audience. Knowing that you were not this year’s chosen one would have been such a relief that you could relax and enjoy the religious experience. And there would have been no cover charge to witness such a Tarintino like bloodbath, one without any irony attached. The bonus, of course, was that the sacrifice would play to the Sun’s better-self, make him do a handbrake turn in the heavens, quickly returning in our direction, bringing light back into the world with him.

How did we get from that essential, deadly festival to what we have today, a sentimental, candyfloss occasion which is both emotionally and financially bankrupting? Where did we lose sight of the infant being celebrated? How did his message get so lost in translation? Does it really matter? He is innocent of any crimes committed in his name and powerless over those who usurped his message. Which is why we are left with a hollow, empty festival where the office Christmas party is about as much fun as root-canal without an anaesthetic, more torture than fun.

I can imagine a modern Scrooge, a penny-pinching, union hating, Brexit voter. As such, it is fair to assume he suffered as a child. An iron rod ruled his house, and a rugby ball would have featured prominently in his childhood, either because he was, or was not, allowed to play. This person suffers from PTS and I can imagine that one of the greatest triggers for this would be the bombardment of Christmas tv advertisements from November onwards. One hates to think of his childhood memories, to investigate his pain. Parents tend to be the source of our greatest neurosis. Listening to a four-year-old being interviewed about the non-existence of Santa recently, made me want to kill the parents. They may have prevented later pain and disappointment, but in doing so, they have killed the magic of childhood and turned their child into a target for bullying in the playground. Shame on you.         

My own memories are vague, but aside from chimney fires, power outages, having to cook our turkey in my granny’s house and a sudden death in the family, the day was very much life as usual, only you could not go out to play with your friends, as they too were hostages to their families for the day. Overall, I was rather confused by the Santa business and it took a while to get the hang of letter writing, followed by a long wait. Then the day would finally arrive, and the present was never quite right-enough to send me into raptures and never quite wrong-enough to disappoint. My ideas were somehow very fixed in my head and got lost in translation in the letter to Santa. And then it happened, that final failure by the man in red. I wrote a letter to himself. Looking back now I can understand how he failed to make sense of my scrawl, but back then, as I posted the letter, I believed. Anybody who knew me as a child will tell you that I spent most of my time out of the house, with friends, playing seasonally adjusted games. This may account for how I slipped the letter into the post box without my parents having had a chance to proofread it first. Imagine their consternation when their son refused to tell them what he had asked for from the fat man. I cannot remember the probing itself. However, I have been told that the interrogations were fierce, but stopped short of torture. It was a close call, so high was the level of frustration caused. You see, I was certain that Santa knew, and it seemed bad form to share what he knew with my parents. You can imagine the result. I did not get the requested gun and holster. There was a lovely present under the tree, a present that, under any other circumstances, would have made me happy for months, but Santa had broken the faith. The seeds of doubt were sown. Christmas and disappointment became linked together in my mind and it would take me some time to decouple them. Since then, I’ve witnessed the same confusion repeatedly and listened to many adults whose hearts were broken under a Christmas tree, on the 25^th of December, years ago.  

I remember watching my niece, one year, discover a doll’s pram beside rather than under the tree. She was hardly four years old, and to see the excitement give way to confusion was a revelation. My theory that children are non-sentient were challenged when she said, “It’s not lilac.” She was correct. What can I say, it was blue. Blue is not lilac, ask a three-year-old if you doubt me. Parents! Oddly enough, like all of us, she quickly got over her disappointment. Soon, she loaded up her pram with dolls and took them out for a walk. I guess she was learning the lesson that dreams never quite match expectations. Just because life is one giant compromise does not mean that it cannot be fun. It’s a good lesson, even if it’s not supposed to be in Santa’s brief. The sad thing is that too many people never learned from their experiences and the ghosts-of-disappointments-past haunt them every year from October 31^st to January the 6^th. For them, this must be the scariest season of the year, the season of disappointment.

I think that the ghosts from the past can disappear themselves as we wander into Christmas present. A word of advice to the Scrooges of this world, low-cost airlines were invented specifically to save you from past traumas and those nagging doubts, that perhaps, you could enjoy the season if only… Do not listen to them, a beach in the Far East awaits.

For the rest of you, let’s examine Scrooge’s opposite number, the Christmas lover, the person who can never get enough of George Michael singing about last Christmas, or see ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ once too often. For these people Christmas is the focal point of the year. They may be few in number, just as there are very few proper Scrooges in the real world, but I do not dismiss them because of that. There are far more than you might imagine. Be warned, Mr Politician Man, their votes could decide a tight election.  

This cohort may be marginally insane, their imaginations fuelled by sentimentality and adrenaline, their optics very much their own. They are the guardians of the season, Marvel Super- Christmas-heroes, bound to the sacred task of making Christmas happen in their household. It is as though they lived in a bygone age and their nearest and dearest’s life was at stake come the full moon at the Winter’s solstice. These people trudge through eleven months of the year, but in December…

For them, there can never be enough fake snow blowing across their lawns, robotic Santas scaling their roofs, elves imprisoned in plastic workshops, or coloured lights causing light pollution in their neighbourhood. In the way Elvis fans are attracted by white, glittering suites, these people become hysterical at the thought of heaped presents scattered under a tinsel covered tree. For them, there is no disappointment when the season has passed. Christmas lovers are like runners huddled and exhausted at the finishing line of the Dublin marathon discussing next year’s run, on the 26^th December our heroes can already be heard thinking out loud about next year. January is next year’s starting line. The 25^th of December may be a long time off for most people, but like a farmer, weary from the harvest, their minds are already tilling the soil, sowing the seeds of future festivities. This is why, they willingly sign up in the first weeks of the year, for next year’s Christmas catalogue. This is why, they start to pay off, one week at a time, for a turkey that has not yet been hatched. For these people, Christmas does not come as a surprise, catching them off guard, as it seems to so many people. They understand that they have 364 days to recover from this year’s case of indigestion, before facing into next year’s. And you can be sure that a box of indigestion tablets will be one of the products ordered from next year’s catalogue.

The proportion of real Scrooges, or manic Christmas lovers, in the population is low. The majority of us live somewhere between both camps. For us, Christmas is an ordeal to be gone through, less painful than a dentist visit, less rewarding than a scratch card win. Most of us cope well enough. But many of us flounder, as we do with so many things in life. We muddle through, but it is a serious bit of muddling. Others have more serious issues yet. They are almost destroyed by the season. Here’s what seems to happen to them. 

The first mainstream hints that Christmas is around the corner occur about October the 31^st when the first seasonally maladjusted tv advertisements air. They hear the warnings but fail to heed them, preferring to swear and scream at the flat screen tv, “It’s only Halloween!” than to heed the warnings. After a month screaming at the tv about the odds of snow falling at Dublin airport on Christmas day this year, they are distracted by the Black Friday sales. Here is a chance to get some early shopping in. However, they know that Black Friday is a con and loudly tell anyone who will listen what a rip-off it is. But no one listens, not even those on adjoining bar stools, who always seem to know-a-man-who-knows-a-man-who got a brand-new Rolex for a tenner. The real thing, the genuine article, you are assured.

The 8^th of December passes (traditionally the day country people flocked to Dublin and did the Christmas shopping.) But these people are still ranting about Black Friday, only now they are alone, others have picked up on the hints and are making lists. From now on, the great muddlers are slowly transformed into zombies. Their eyes glaze over, they are hypnotized by the tragedy coming down the tracks at them. If only they could move to avoid it, but they can’t. They are doomed but fail to realize that yet.

The Christmas time bomb is ticking in the background, more loudly, but at the same inevitable rate. Every day an advent calendar door is opened, every morning a sweet eaten. The empty squares are a grim, visual reminder that time is running out. But the world is full to overflowing with visual reminders. The radio adds audio hints too, playing a plethora of songs that feature reindeer, but they are immune, deaf to the clamouring call to get organized. Then suddenly, their zombie cataracts are lasered off and they can see clearly. It is the 23^rd or 24^th and there is work to be done.

They need a space to think clearly, so retire to a pub to make the all-important shopping list. Ok, it is not so much a list of presents to buy, as it is of people they must get something for, but this is still progress.

If you identify with this behaviour, you have plenty of company. Just look around yourself on the 24^th as you pop into and out of stores, as you slowly ride up and down escalators, packed with excited kids and exhausted shoppers. Check out the eyes. The kids’ swivel in their heads as though they have mainlined on sugar and promises. There are the tired eyes too, of those who have done all the major work and are doing that last chore, the Brussel sprouts run. In other words, they are secretly patting themselves on the back while gloating at those still in the middle of a shopping frenzy: you.

Imagine yourself in the zombie’s place. Your eyes are now more like those of a panicked horse than an excited child. It is difficult to focus. But at least you have a list, true it comprises of names, not things. Soap, socks, and chocolate may be the saving of you yet. Maybe not.  Surprisingly, well before the shops have closed you sit once again on a bar stool, a clutch of shopping bags gathered around your ankles. Wrapping paper protrudes from one, Christmas songs play in the background, friends wish each other well and the man on the stool beside you wonders it the butcher is still open. You smile, feeling like you’ve won the lotto. Your race is run for this year. You have presents for everyone. There may be grumbling, but you have kept the receipts. The man on the seat beside you gulps down the last of his drink and disappears into the night.  

We’ve all seen people like him before, fuelled by alcohol and fear, rushing from pubs into the nearest shops with a twenty-minute window to set Christmas to rights. The results can be a little disconcerting. To watch a man, on bended knees, wrapping inappropriate presents in yesterday’s newspaper, as the final moments of the 24^th tick away, is sobering. As for the man who limped home in the early hours of the 25^th lugging a Christmas tree in one hand and holding a (still warm) turkey in the other, he found a decorated tree in the hall and practically sobered up there and then. Not completely, but the miracle which had unfolded in his absence made him pause and think, but not hard enough to reform.            

 If you identify with this man, then you are already prepared for the disappointment which follows. Not only that, but you share this overwhelming feeling of helpless despair with anybody unfortunate enough to wind up sitting beside you for Christmas dinner. Like a character from Groundhog Day, you never learn, and seem destined to replay this scene next year, and the year after that, and…

A friend of mine has a theory that Christmas is sent teach children how to cope with disappointment. She may be right, she may be wrong, her insight was the inspiration for a screenplay I wrote. But how much disappointment must a child go through for the adult child to perpetuate the failure of Christmases past? How much pain are the Scrooges of this world really carrying? I think they carry enough to exempt them from having to comply with somebody else’s notion of how to celebrate the season.

Remember to bring your suntan lotion with you Scrooge. And avoid the salads. 

But I shall not be running away. I’m brave enough to face it full on. Anyway, there is no rule that says Christmas must be hell on earth. Watch children play with their presents if you doubt me. And as they play, I shall dream of good food and contemplate organising a collection of black socks large enough to last a lifetime.