Christmas Traditions

Christmas is, traditionally, a time of traditions, both old and new.  It is possible, indeed desirable, to have new traditions and although social media can induce ultra short term nostalgia, may I suggest that we all agree that a tradition is based upon a length of time no shorter than an annual cycle.  Going to get your coffee from the same place every Sunday for a couple of months is not a tradition, it’s a habit, you addict.

You can certainly expand upon existing traditions.  My favourite Christmas traditions include switching off the television promptly as soon as the broadcast of ‘Carols from Kings’ begins, and enjoying ‘A Ghost Story for Christmas’ with a glass of port, just as the schoolboys in the charge of M R James used to do many Christmasses ago when he would invite them up to his rooms, give them alcohol and tell them disquieting stories.  Simpler, kinder, times.

If you are lucky enough to be spending Christmas with your family, you probably have your own traditions.  These can be the traditional ones of traditional games, like ‘Hunt the AAA Batteries’ or ‘Some Assembly Swearing’, they can also be ones that are unique to your nation, region, village, culture or indeed family.  Cherish especially the family traditions that appear so, so normal because everyone does them unthinkingly each year.  The first time you spend a Christmas in the company of another family is also the first time you realise that others might do stuff differently.  Surely it is a test of the manners of any gentleman not to scream ‘barbarians’ at anyone who does not stand for the start of The Queen, and who can forget that moment when you realised that a guest wasn’t joking about being a vegan and you hastily rinsed the duck fat roasted potatoes, beans, sprouts and carrots.

Walking into a room splashed with gore and remarking ‘you mean you don’t batter badgers on Christmas Day, but how do you keep down TB in this area, and what do you serve in butties later?’ might be unusual, but possibly no more so than rousing a guest early on Boxing Day and informing them they are about to hunt down and kill a fox, as is traditional in many villages and hamlets in England.  Fox hunting, on Boxing day or any other time of the year, never really took off in cities, which is a shame really because if there is one pest that needs controlled it’s an urban fox, and the sight of a pack of hounds and several dozen horses going full tilt through a pedestrianised city centre on the first day of the sales would I think we can all agree be unforgettable, no matter how much one subsequently tried.  A Christmas Day hunt is in and of itself a typically English tradition, it has everything the English love, it has posh people and posher ponies, it has dogs, it has a plucky underdog, well, underfox, and it has the voice of dissent in the form of hunt protestors.  All of whom probably meet up at a local country pub before the off, because no bugger is going to go tearing across the countryside and leap hedges when sober, that’s for sure.

The best traditions are, of course, the ones you make yourself.  Like making a Christmas playlist to drive to, ensuring that ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ is on what the radio folk like to call ‘heavy rotation’.

Of course, when creating a new tradition one should have a care, what if, years from now, your child spends their first Christmas with their loved one and their family and embarks on performing an action that has gone unremarked upon and unquestioned at home for years, ever since you first created that tradition.  Will it appear charming, or some weird shit that other folks will think one step away from a ritual?  If the latter, I recommend you go for it, traditions are mannerisms given legitimacy through longevity, no matter how weird.  Kissing under some mistletoe?  Try to invent that today, in the office, and explain it away as a charming festive idea you think will really catch on.