How long have you been ready for Christmas? Like sightings of the first summer swallow, the question comes earlier each year, and with the 25th just round the corner, many people we know have by now been preparing for what seems like an eternity. For years the festive preparation phase seemed safely confined to December, because who would dare get ready for something more than a month away? In 2021, a combination of Covid, Brexit and the urgent need to feel cheerful about something proved enough to break that embargo. People started “getting ready’ early in November, bulk-buying mince pies and getting the decorations down from the loft. Turkeys sold out, not because they were ever in short supply—or so my butcher assures me—but because so many people ordered them earlier than usual.
Given that Christmas comes with so much pressure, why would we willingly submit to it any earlier than necessary? Because we love a deadline, that’s why. It gives shape to the year and provides a useful winter adrenaline shot, giving life a sense of purpose and drama. As the most compelling of all dates, 25th December lends itself irresistibly to this drama—it’s the mother of all deadlines. We pit ourselves against a date that is essentially arbitrary, even for Christians—since there is no evidence that Jesus was born in the winter—feverishly buying gifts, putting up decorations and remembering all the extras—bath bombs for teachers, crackers for parties, chocolates for key workers.
What should be a season for hospitality and good cheer becomes another kind of work crisis. Whose hospitality will be the best? Whose good cheer can be solidly underpinned with the right combination of expenditure, planning and poise? Then there are the Christmas bullies, the ones who keep upping the ante for the rest of us. Who, for example, decided that we ought all to have Christmas jumpers? Who came up with the idea of new pyjamas to unwrap on Christmas Eve, or advent calendars for dogs? The only people keeping ahead of this game are using spreadsheets.
Christmas need not be confined to our private lives, either, but can usefully be deployed as a work target, or indeed to galvanise the nation. In 1914, so the story goes, Britons expected the war to be “over by Christmas.” Donald Trump vowed to have troops out of Afghanistan “by Christmas.” Last year Boris Johnson hoped to beat Covid by Christmas. And this year, as we find ourselves once more on a war footing, the imperative is to get boosted by Christmas, to saveour Christmas. It’s as though we were a motley collection of Marvel characters battling a villain—and of course we are doing that, but it will take more than superhuman powers to beat the evil Omicron by Christmas Day.
If nothing else, a looming deadline focuses minds. On a recent mission to finish a big translating project, I found myself working through weekends and evenings to make that all important Christmas deadline. Got to get this done by Christmas, I muttered to myself, substituting toast for regular meals and denying myself Succession or any kind of social life. The deadline created its own momentum and became mildly addictive. Every evening I could see real progress—like the Magi advancing towards Bethlehem, I was inching closer to the target. I was both determined to meet it and fearful of the void that would follow—the Boxing Day effect, for want of a better term. Because, what else can follow a deadline but a deflation? That red-letter day we’ve been working towards sometimes turns out to be an anticlimax. Not that the Magi were disappointed, I hasten to add.
Lifestyle gurus often encourage us to think of our lives, or different parts of it, as a “journey,” and that hopeful language of travel has seeped into wider life. The NHS, for example, now refers to the patient “journey,” and perhaps some people respond to the idea of themselves as moving towards a goal rather than merely submitting to a process. Others, who see themselves as “undergoing” treatment, “enduring” cancer, or merely “having” an illness, may feel patronised by the comparison with journeys and destinations. So often the deadline seems to be arbitrary, the journey may end later than envisaged. After all, the Three Kings didn’t reach Bethlehem until 6th January. So—are you ready for Epiphany yet?
