Angela Mollard: Is this the year that Grinch stole Christmas spirit?

Cost of living, the ugliness of war and over-the-top consumerism may loom large, but if Christmas gives you (overpriced) lemons, it’s about being flexibly festive, writes ANGELA MOLLARD.

Art for Angela Mollard column. The Christmas Grinch, and Nigella Lawson. Pictures: Supplied

For years I’ve been deeply suspicious of those who proclaim they don’t like Christmas.

How can you not like Christmas? I know fat, old, white-bearded blokes in red suits don’t meet current diversity standards but what’s not to like about a holiday, advent calendars, fairy lights and an overindulgence of custard.

Besides, no other celebration has such excellent iconography as the candy canes, elves, reindeers, gingerbread men (and women) and stockings that inexplicably have come to symbolise what, for so many, is now a secular event.

And yet this year I wasn’t feeling it.

The jaunty songs in the supermarket, the faux excitement set against the ugliness unfolding in the world, the consumerism in the face of a cost-of-living crisis, the waste that is gift wrap, the over-consumption which will lead to even more credit card debt, the challenges for reconfigured families, the supermarkets continuing to gouge us even though farmers tell us meat prices have come down and crops are plentiful.

Seriously, what’s going on with the price of lemons? Picture: Supplied

Honestly, how can a lemon cost $1.50 in a nation where the sun shines?

Even for a Yuletide enthusiast like me, Christmas this year felt out of step.

Nigella said what many were thinking when she admitted her kids don’t like old-school Christmas cake.

Expensive, incongruous, jangly and synthetic, it seemed a source of stress, not joy. Not least because as is the case with every celebration these days, it’s too over-the-top.

Yet the trouble with giving in to the Grinch is that I have two grown children who remain resolutely excited by Christmas.

There is no inflatable Santa big enough for their imaginations, no festive dessert not worth testing and no convincing them that adulthood should mark the relinquishing of traditions such as stockings and a carrot left out for Rudolph.

Nigella Lawson's Winter Wonderland Cake. It’s chocolate. It’s good. Picture: Supplied

Consequently, I couldn’t cancel Christmas. The only thing I could do was change my response to it.

Essentially, the festive season needs to mean something whether that’s religious or familial or simply an opportunity for relaxation. Which is why when I spotted a Christmas advertisement for a little pub in Ireland, I remembered the point of the celebration. The Brits do Christmas and the adverts that herald the season particularly well but this year the usual glittery offerings from department stores have been eclipsed by a video shot on an iPhone by a friend of the pub owner.

REALITY CHECK

The advert for Charlie’s Bar in Enniskillen begins with an elderly man placing flowers on a grave. From there he walks into a town centre where he lifts his cap to some teenage girls and tries to catch the eye of a man sitting on a bench.

All ignore him.

He then goes into a pub and a dog jumps up on the bench beside him. Its owners, a young couple, ask if they can join him for a drink.

The video has gone viral because if we don’t feel lonely ourselves – and statistics suggest plenty of us do – then we know someone who likely does.

In just 120 seconds that video made me feel better about Christmas Day. I’m spending it with my sister-in-law’s mother who was recently widowed and my parents who are in their late 70s. Simply by being present, enjoying the time we spend with others, considering those who might be alone and switching out festive malaise for self-generated rather than store-bought enchantment, we can flick on a different sort of Christmas light.

The second thing that made me brighten was Nigella Lawson’s admission that she no longer makes a traditional fruit-based Christmas cake because her kids loathe it. Instead, she opts for a winter wonderland cake with chocolate and raspberries. This willingness to accommodate change and others is real festive spirit.

EMBRACE THE MUDDLE

The best gatherings are muddled and evolving.

They welcome the divorced, forgive the annoying, embrace the niece who is non-binary or the kid who doesn’t know what they are but this is framily (friends or family) and all are included. Sure, it’s an ideal but it’s also an achievable micro intention. In the same vein, kudos to Woolworths who instead of featuring celebrities in its December magazine, has instead sought recipe contributions from ordinary members of its team.

Shannon’s late grandfather’s fruit cake and John’s mum’s chocolate ripple loaf are more egalitarian than some A-lister’s pavlova extravaganza.

Now if they could just address those lemon prices.

Another thing that flipped my perspective was my eldest daughter’s new hobby. Home from university, she has taken to printmaking and spends most evenings carving out designs and turning them into art. She’s made a lighthouse for me and is in the process of creating something special which I can’t divulge. The thought of homemade gifts has cheered me no end. Effort for another is such an under-realised kindness.

Finally, I read something beautiful by author Matt Haig. Noting that the world is increasingly designed to depress us and that we’re constantly told life will be better if we fix something or buy something, he encourages us to be happy with our own “non-upgraded” existence. “To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act,” he explains. Calm will be both my mantra and gift to others this Christmas.

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Originally published as Angela Mollard: Is this the year that Grinch stole Christmas spirit?