Kit Hesketh Harvey has a few suggestions on how to avoid carnage at Christmas
You’ve seen piranha attacks? Earthquakes, on your telly-box? Riots? For us, Christmas Day means a clan gathering of two dozen. The youngest generation is numerous, and close in age. Baying like hyenas, they’ve been circling the tree since dawn. Lunch is cleared. The terrifying moment can be postponed no longer. It’s present-opening time…
And it’s Lord of the Flies. A bedlam of children who have been up since three, and adults who didn’t go to bed till five. Perfectly respectable people in cracker hats, behaving as if this were a foam party in Falaraki. Old folk, accustomed to manners more gracious, in catatonic shock. While in the centre of the room, a volcano of detritus that would look like a landfill site, if it had seagulls. God bless us, every one? God help us, more like.
There are more decorous ways. Europeans handle it with delicacy. Scandinavians preserve the sanctity of the festival by doling out gifts on Christmas Eve, gloomily eating herrings the while. The Germans, bizarrely keen on little wooden decorations, hold hands around the tree and sing with joy. The Russians wait until the whole thing is over, getting on with it on Twelfth Night.
All too cheerless for the Brits. We ruthlessly enforce the whole Charles Dickens fantasy, even in the least appropriate circumstances. I had a diplomatic childhood. In strictly Muslim countries, I have seen tinsel trees smuggled in, in poster-tubes, and illegal carols sung VERY QUIETLY, as if in a blackout. Present opening is as hushed as an Enid Blyton dormitory feast, and the lack of alcohol is an improvement.
All families do Christmas idiosyncratically. Each has individual traditions chiselled in brass. Other people’s Christmases feel weird. For new sons- or daughters-in-law, Christmas Somewhere Else is a watershed. I know of one engagement broken off after an appalled fiancée witnessed a ceremony at which every single member of the family had to watch every single present being opened, think of something constructive to say about it, and say it. “It was like a Quaker funeral.” Another was cheered when she married into an Irish family as fecund as any Pope could hope. Presents from-everybody-to-everybody would have been ruinously expensive. Instead, names were drawn out of a hat, and single presents bought in a secret-Santa arrangement, like an office party. The pressure was off, and choirs of angels sang.
Look, I’m not a bah-humbug sort of chap, but how could this be a recipe for anything but disaster? Twice the usual number of people, shoe-horned into a room half its normal size because of that tree? Sleep deprivation and liver damage? Flatulence? A lack of oxygen because of the fire? Here are a few tips from a battle-weary veteran.
Pre-empt the later agony. Give the little ones a stocking to open at dawn. It will distract them from the main event long enough for you to grab 40 more precious winks. In the meantime, preparation is all. Dampen the fire and put up the guard to prevent over-excited toddlers from doing a Brunnhilde.
Have a big empty box ready for each family member, to contain the tide of plunder. Scissors, a pencil and piece of paper within each, to note down who gave what for thank-you letters. A fat roll of recycling bags on hand to clear away wrapping paper: during, not after. (Don’t put these on the bonfire immediately: there’s bound to be a gift-voucher in there somewhere.) Appoint the most junior clan-member as postman. And finally, the whole thing has to be filmed, on the off -chance that some heartwarming moment will end up on You’ve Been Framed.
One last suggestion – from Christopher Biggins, the nation’s collective Santa. Everybody re-wraps up their most unfavourite present: the most tacky and innapropriate. Then, at New Year’s Eve, you give it to a fellow guest as a bad-taste party game. It’s hilarious. Ho, ho, ho, and good luck.
Read our Unique Toy Boutiques selection and Christmas Gadget Gift Ideas for further help with finding the right gifts.
