Andrew Kay: Present & correct

Tired and uninspired maybe but still full of good cheer

Ho ho ho, and a very uninspired Christmas. I sincerely hope that you are having more fun and more luck in finding the right gifts for your family and friends this year, as I am feeling singularly uninspired.

A walk around the city left me feeling cold, the amount of tat out there, specially confected to fill us with seasonal goodwill, left me feeling seasonally abused. I cannot ever imagine that I will be tempted to buy anything emblazoned with Santa, Rudolph, Christmas fairies or elves in the same way that I would never indulge in anything referring to staying calm.

Of course I realise that this drops me fairly in the middle of the bah humbug camp, which could not be further from the truth. I love Christmas, I really do – I just hate all the commercial claptrap that decorates it.

Good health, good cheer and good fun – Merry Christmas to you all

I wrote recently about my disbelief in religious matters, but I was reduced to tears of laughter a few days ago when a friend reported that their small child had been cast in the school Christmas play, as a spaceman (excuse me being gender specific, but the child is a boy), a non-speaking role I believe. I laughed, but not because it was particularly funny but because it was rather sad.

I understand that in a world of multi denominational education the needs of all faiths to be represented should be honoured and celebrated, but spacemen at a depiction of the birth of Christ does strike me as going too far. Even though my faith is damaged, possibly beyond repair, I want my nativity to be traditional; shepherds, sheep, a donkey, three wise men, an inn keeper and his wife maybe, Mary, Joseph … and a doll swaddled in a tea towel.

I want proper carols too, and, if you’re asking, I want ‘In The Bleak Mid-Winter’ (I don’t mind which arrangement, they all reduce me to tears).

I will happily join in any other festival or celebration too, out of respect for others (save of course those that deal in death and misery). So have a divine Divali, happy Hanukkah – but please, PLEASE, PLEASE! give it to me straight, don’t blur the lines or fluff the issues, let’s have less dumbing down and more wising up, for God’s sake, whoever that God might be.

Righto, got that off my chest, time to move on. Gifts, yes, what am I giving this Christmas? Well I think a gift should be heartfelt, something that you are as happy to give as the recipient should be to receive. I will therefore not be giving goats to villagers, standpipes or bull semen. It’s not that I think such charitable ideas are bad, far from it, but I don’t think that these gifts hit the right note for the people that I do buy for.

My nephews are at that age where anything I might choose will inevitably be wrong, so I gift them music in token form. I know they like that and that makes us all happy. For Mum, well she likes simple pleasures like nice toiletries and chocolate and warm, but pretty, clothes.

Friends get food or wine or art of some kind, depending on who they are and what they like. No one gets anything that is a seasonal joke, no Santa socks or Rudolph undies, no ugly tea mugs or jolly tea towels.

What do I want? I want what I wish you all; good health, good cheer and good fun – Merry Christmas to you all.

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