Lise Hand’s guide to the 12 nays of Christmas
There are some Christmas commandments you just cannot get around. Ignore them, and you could find yourself out in the December cold
Season of peace and goodwill, my bockety paper hat. ’Tis the season to be jolly well knackered and to have yourself a merry little Xanax, as the chorus echoing through the wrecked, decked halls is less O Holy Night, and more O holy shi…well, you get the picture.
Google ‘Christmas’ and ‘stress’ and up pops a slew of surveys conducted post-alleged ‘festive season’ by every class of expert from medical organisations to pain-relief manufacturers.
All without exception conclude that Christmas sends people’s stress levels not just through the roof but to hover in the vicinity of the James Webb Space Telescope. Imagine our surprise.
We could all do with a few silent nights this Christmas, given that the year has been lamentably short on either peace or goodwill and regrettably long on conflict and invective.
But help is nigh. The Twelve Nays of Christmas is a handy – or Handy – guide to preventing the whole palaver from devolving into an EastEnders special, with added rapidly approaching sirens.
Some of these fall into the category of Stating the Bleeding Obvious, but then some folk are total goms altogether, aren’t they? Not you, of course.
THE FIRST NAY
FÓGRA: Christmas Day has fallen on 25 December every year since Jesus was a child, literally. (Or figuratively, depending on one’s point of view).
Do not start fretfully declaring a few days beforehand that the whole thing “just crept up on you”. It didn’t. It isn’t Buffalo Bill in his basement in Silence of the Lambs. The songs, the panto ads and every shop window were up in your grille from November 1.
The truth is, you couldn’t be arsed until the deadline hove into view. As a result, you will spend more money panic-buying presents, and you will be in the shops when everyone else is in the pub.
You know that irritating foosterer who reaches the supermarket checkout and then suddenly springs into startled life and begins a protracted hunt for their phone/credit card/wallet, while everyone in the long queue behind them heaps silent curses on their head? Don’t be that person. Be prepared. It’s not too late.
THE SECOND NAY
Don’t just shove a voucher into a spare envelope as a gift. It’s the seasonal equivalent of giving someone a bedraggled bunch of petrol station-bought carnations in a fruitless attempt to persuade the disillusioned recipient that it’s the afterthought that counts.
Vouchers aren’t bad presents, but a little extra effort is required. If giving a book token (generally a good idea), pick out a book to wrap with it. But for the love of god don’t pick Joyce’s Ulysses.
Christmas is fraught enough without making someone feel like a right thick for thinking that Ineluctable Modality of the Visible was the name of Westlife’s next album.
THE THIRD NAY
Don’t give socks as a present, unless specifically requested. Especially not novelty socks which are useful for nothing and inevitably end up in a white wash wherein the garish colours will run wildly like stampeding wildebeest across the Serengeti plains.
Ditto with perfume, unless specified. Scent is a treacherous gamble – one person’s Sunny Day on a Tuscan Hillside is another’s Midsummer in Manhattan During a Garbage Strike.
THE FOURTH NAY
Do not assume all will be well with the tree. Given the hairraising price of electricity, chances are that the Christmas tree will not be ablaze with lights until closer than usual to the 25th.
But that’s no excuse for not inspecting the various strings of lights well in advance of decoration day. It matters not a whit that you released your inner Blue Peter child last January and carefully fashioned fancy cardboard reels around which were painstakingly wound the sets of lights.
For when they are removed from storage, they will be in a heap regardless.They will emerge more tangled than both Donald Trump’s finances and marital history.
And if you do manage to eventually undo the ghastly Gordian knot, you will discover that the bulbs are as lifeless as a dead parrot, the family dog having quietly chewed through a few wires at one end while you were swearing up a storm at the other.
THE FIFTH NAY
On the day itself, absolutely do not wander into the host/hostess’s kitchen, glass of Champagne in hand a couple of hours before dinnertime and ask “is there anything I can do?” Of course there bloody well isn’t, not at that late stage in the game.
Not even Hannibal’s feat of manoeuvring a herd of elephants over the Alps was more meticulously executed than the average designated chef ’s preparations for the Christmas dinner.
Courses are painstakingly pre-planned, ingredients bought on schedule, and then a mountain of food is chopped, roasted, boiled, baked and sautéed according to a carefully calculated timetable. And then YOU show up, just as Chef is about to put on the carrots, being as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.
THE SIXTH NAY
While on the subject of the kitchen, if you are going to someone’s house for Christmas dinner, and are a strict vegetarian/vegan/Paleo disciple, have the good sense/manners to alert them well in advance to your endearing little culinary quirks.
Better still, assure them you will bring your own butternut squash wellington and so forth. And even if you are an omnivore, arrive bearing some edible gift for the table, such as a selection of cheeses.
Or offer to contribute a nice gateau for dessert. Not everybody likes plum pudding. In fact, some people regard plum pudding as akin to eating the rum-soaked sole of an old boot, with added treacle.
THE SEVENTH NAY
This is an important one; do not hit the hooch too early on Christmas morning. It may be tempting to kick off the day with bubbly and bacon butties, then perhaps an eye-opener Bloody Mary in mid-morning when the neighbours drop by, followed by more Champagne because everyone knows that our feathered friends never traversed the skies on a single wing.
Then it seems sensible to counter the heat of the kitchen with a cool beer straight from the fridge, before electing to sample which wines should be served with each course.
This sort of carry-on never, ever ends well. By the time the sun has reached the yardarm, the over-refreshed are prostrate on the sofa, one foot planted on the floor in a vain effort to stop the spinnies. Just remember – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas is a song, not an instruction.
THE EIGHTH NAY
Do not pass judgement on the activities of others. Accept with stoic resignation that there will be family members or friends who will want to down tools and watch the King’s Speech on the BBC.
And did you know that the inaugural royal Christmas message broadcast by King George V in 1932 was scripted by Rudyard Kipling?
THE NINTH NAY
As that great philosopher, Bart Simpson once asked, “Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa.” It is, after all, a day for the young folk.
The same young folk who added considerably to the stress levels of their parents since September by selecting their Santa wish list from the Smyth’s Christmas catalogue, which turned out to be compiled of toys which had sold out at a speed which made Usain Bolt look like a tortoise with a dead leg.
Do not attempt to apply any normal rules of behaviour or on the consumption of sugar. Accept you shall be assembling a Lego Hogwarts Express by 5am and will be in your car looking for an open garage that sells batteries by 9am.
All one can do is cherish the memories and anticipate the joyous occasions ahead when they’ll be old enough to spend Christmas Day in their bedroom making TikTok videos on their brandnew iPhone 35, a snip at €5,999.99 plus VAT.
THE TENTH NAY
This is another crucial one. Unless one prefers one’s roast spuds and gravy adorning the dining-room wallpaper as opposed to the best china plates, there must be a No Politics rule strictly enforced at the table.
Politics are the equivalent of a Brussels sprout – one either gets stuck in with relish or runs a mile from having any truck with it at all. And this year’s landscape is especially bristling with potential landmines, given the relentless political pandemonium in both the ironically-named United States and the United Kingdom.
If there are elderly members of your tribe present, forbear from invoking Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, and if some wind-up merchant even whispers “Roe v Wade”, immediately set fire to the table. It’ll cause less damage in the long run.
THE ELEVENTH NAY
An important piece of advice; unless thou is unlucky enough to be working on the day after, thou shalt not get out of thy pyjamas on St. Stephen’s Day. This is most definitely not the time to inform everyone that what they need is some fresh air and a bracing walk in the driving rain.
Leave everyone be. It’s a day for doing bugger-all, bar making a pile of turkey sandwiches to eat in front of the racing from Leopardstown on the telly, sneaking a hair of the dog that bit you while you fill in a few clues on a jumbo crossword.
There are, however, exceptions to this rule; if you own a big dog or a small person who has just received a bike, skateboard, or roller-skates from Santa, then you are permitted to don a coat over your pyjamas and sally forth to walk the beast or scoop up a wailing child from the pavement.
The other excuse is to actually go to a race meeting on Stephen’s Day, sporting your new Christmas coat.
THE TWELFTH NAY
This last commandment came into force on 1 December, and it is perfectly straightforward – do not under any circumstances capitulate to any notion that Doing the 12 Pubs of Christmas is a mighty bit of craic.
It is in fact a cast-iron guarantee of tears before bedtime and it’s all great fun until someone loses an iPhone. Nobody – unless the body belongs to a certain cohort of professional dart players – is designed to imbibe a dozen alcoholic beverages at speed over a few hours.
Oh, it always starts well, everyone gussied up in Christmas jumpers, full of bonhomie. But it inevitably ends with somebody falling down on the ground, falling out with their best friend, or falling in the front door to a dawn chorus of what-time-do-you-call-this?
And worst of all, post-festive season you may even find yourself subjected to the Big Chill, barred from a favourite ale-house for attempting to inhale a Baby Guinness whilst go-go dancing on the bar counter. It’s just not worth it.
So, stay frosty, stay out of the dog house and stay out of A&E. And it’s not absolutely the most un-wonderful time of the year, no matter what the nay-say
