It is ten forty-five p.m, 24 December 2013. In the Chemist household,
this points in one direction. Not, as the end of the previous sentence
suggests, to an evening of shite, shallow pop, but to the yearly family visit
eglise-wards. We’re off to church.
It has been a family tradition, since before I became aware,
that we drag ourselves away from the world of secular pleasures and go and pay
our dues to the Baby J, the donkeys and all the pretty little blonde angels.
I’m from a Catholic household, and was an unblinking believer
for the first sixteen years of my life. This meant that Christmas meant
something of actual importance. It was a reminder and celebration of the wond’rous
joy of the dawning of a new world. Unlike Easter, which, while being the bigger
miracle, was an unending guilt trip of biblical proportions. Easter is shit.
Even though I had God removed from my life by sustained
thought, and, ironically, an epiphany, the remnants of this period are deeply
ingrained into the deepest trenches of my psyche. Christmas is more than an excuse to get
wasted without being judged, to stay in bed until early evening, to have port
and stilton for breakfast. These are, indeed, parts of the wonder of the
Yuletide period, but the whole is greater than the parts.
I first got into the family Midnight Mass at the age of
eight, when I discovered that I would be allowed to open my presents on return
from the slowest hour-and-a-half of my life, rather than having to wait until
the morning. When you’re waiting for a
lightsaber and laser-rifle, those hours matter. It’s the difference between a life of freedom
or a life of alien-overlorded servitude.
And, as I imagine most children find, it was chore. A big, fat steaming Christmas chore, to which
I was bonded. As the years passed, the ways to pass time changed. For a few
years, I’d translate the Latin verses into English for the duration. Hitting my early twenties, I’d spend the
dripping minutes of boredom checking out the talent from a fog of festive spirits. A phase
which lasted pretty much the rest of the decade, with various degrees of disorientation, and
talent.
I never pulled at church. I clearly wasn't working the room
well enough.
I must’ve seemed somewhat responsible in my late twenties,
because the Priest’s little helper, lighting his way with a red nose to put Sid
James to shame, and with a face of thread-veins like a map of the Nile, asked
me to take charge of the collection plate. Feeling grown-up, I agreed. Feeling shitfaced,
I dropped it. I have not been asked again.
Two years ago, Mario Balotelli was at the same church as me.
I asked him to make sure we won our game on Boxing Day. We lost. Mario, you owe
me a Christmas present.
The last few years I've been on driving duty, so Christmas
Eve’s excuse for getting ripped off my tits has gone the way of the dodo. Or
Dodi, for those with a royalist streak.
Now, I sit still, sing, and think about the beauty of the
occasion, and consider the communal coming together in midwinter which has been a
feature of European life for millennia. In the calm sobriety, in my concrete belief
in no unearthly being* , I remember that we are all here, now, at this point in
time and space. That we have all sprung from one chance mutation somewhere in
Africa eons ago. I remember that many have come before, and many will come
after. Hundreds of thousands of years have seen billions of lives, loves,
losses. We have shared stories, we have risen
and fallen, grown and shrivelled.
And I remember that, today, globally,
more than ever, we share histories, cultures, ye traditional hopes and fears.
And for that, even if the rest of the year you’re an
absolute fucking nonce, remember - we all are human. We share that. We are none
of us islands. At best, be loving, caring, considerate. At worst, don’t be a
dickhead. It’ll be the 27th
soon, the peace and goodwill will all be over, and people will expect to get
shafted. For the next two days, no one wants to be fucked over.
Make Christmas mean something. Make it mean people.
Happy Christmas to you all.**
* Not including Roger from American Dad
** Apart, of course, from David Cameron, Gideon Osbourne,
Michael Gove and all the other devils of spiteful hate. Even I don’t feel that
festive.
