As he announced the unpopular second lockdown in England, Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said that it was “his ambition for people to be with their families for Christmas” and he had “every confidence” that the lockdown would mean the UK could have as “normal a Christmas as possible. “
Then the gloomsters and doomsters on SAGE waded in with their dire warnings – there was no point having a merry Christmas and then burying friends and relations in January and February as a consequence. “My personal view is we’re putting far too much emphasis on having a near-normal Christmas,” claimed Professor Hayward, one of the SAGE gloomsters.
Never mind the ‘cleansed’ lyrics to Fairytale of New York, interesting opportunities to re-write our traditional Christmas hits beckon – “I’m dreaming of a normal Christmas, with every Christmas card I write”; “It won’t be normal this Christmas, without you to hold” ……
So what is ‘normal’ And is it worth it? The pandemic has cancelled or diminished so many of our annual seasonal celebrations this year, starting with Easter and working through Eid, Rosh Hashanah and Diwali, not to mention all those summer fairs and music concerts. And it won’t be ‘normal’, not by a long way; There’ll be no cheerfully crowded Christmas Markets, here or in many European countries, with most cancelled or gone ‘virtual’. Office Christmas parties and discos? The school Nativity play? Father Christmas will still be ho, ho hoing in some shopping centres, when they re-open – from behind a screen. The annual pantomime is a vital income generator for many theatres; the panto dames staged a colourful protest in London’s theatreland earlier this autumn, to no avail. If there’s a ‘drive in’ panto near you do book your place – our theatres have had a terrible year thanks to the dreaded virus, they deserve all the support we can give them.
Normal is as normal does – your normal may be safer than mine and mine safer than the next person’s. If you haven’t got the message by now, the virus spreads, as most do, from close contact and – you might be forgiven for not appreciating this, as our ‘learned advisers’, from the WHO to those gloomy Government scientists, have been slow to inform us, there is airborne transmission. Just like that other Christmas lurgi – winter vomiting disease or norovirus. This means that if a ‘normal’ Christmas is with your young nuclear family, starts with hanging up the stockings on Christmas Eve, followed by a family meal, maybe joined by grandparents on Christmas Day, then you are unlikely risk catching or spreading Covid-19. Even larger family gatherings are not necessarily the superspreading events feared by the SAGE pearl clutchers. It all depends on the participants’ previous activities, it’s a question of risk assessment really. Just avoid that other time old Christmas tradition of at least one family member turning up with a stinking cold and soldiering through on liberal doses of cold remedy and hot toddy. That’s one risk too far now.
What if, like me, you normally spend Christmas Eve – and New Year’s Eve – in a crowded pub with much hugging and merriment at the witching hour? Close contact? stuffy indoor venue? well that ticks all the wrong boxes doesn’t it? Even Government advice – belatedly- is to open windows and let air circulate at home when you have visitors. The partying and pub crawls are the ‘normal’ of those unencumbered by family responsibilities; mostly the younger family members and not a few oldies, whose children have grown up. Is it so much to ask that this year, hopefully just for this once, you give this kind of ‘normal’ a miss?
How long does what seems like family tradition last, before children grow up and move away, the heart and soul of your family Christmas dies – or divorces your relative and remarries? In 2013 my soldier son was in Afghanistan. It wasn’t a normal Christmas for him in Camp Bastion but I’m sure it was merry. It wasn’t normal for us either, our daughter invited us all to Edinburgh, producing a perfect Christmas dinner in the galley kitchen of her rented flat. “Come early to enjoy the Christmas Market”, she urged. We caught, in torrential rain, what turned out to be the last plane out of Gatwick North. The flooding had already stopped the trains out of Kings Cross. Back home plenty of others didn’t have a ‘normal’ Christmas either – they weren’t as lucky as us, their homes were flooded.
So embrace different instead of ‘normal’ this year; you might even enjoy it more. And the mistletoe? “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me – a dose of Covid-19”. “ Sealed with a kiss.”
Support the farmers selling mistletoe, hang a huge bunch above the lintel, like they do in Cracow but save your kisses for after the pandemic.
Helena Windsor
Microbiologist and UKIP Health Spokesman
In our family there are in effect seven bubbles. We have two married daughters each with two grown children. If
we get together with our daughters for christmas we will not be able to mingle with our grandchildren, who as young adults, want to party with their numerous friends in the run up to christmas. Even if we stay out of the loop it means that our daughters still wont be able to get together. I dont suppose our family is the only one with that sort of conundrum so it will be interesting to see what the result will be.
Personally, we are quite prepared to stay out of it, maskless and vacineless. After all we have managed to keep fit and well for the last ten months or so.
Ps. Having said that, if these lockdown become the new normal we will probably forget what our relatives look like. Especially our grandson who, we are told now wears glasses and is growing a beard. Lol.
That is precisely what we do need to avoid!
As for household mixing – I am thinking of organising a zoom Xmas toast. Our son wasn’t going to be with us this year anyway and one daughter works in the theatre, if she’s doing panto it depends where – when she worked at Hall for Cornwall it really wasn’t worth her driving up to Surrey after the Christmas Eve matinee then be back for Boxing Day matinee. We used to have a post Christmas break in Falmouth and see her then.
As a microbiologist I find the spitting anger and distrust of a vaccine upsetting – ditto everyone regarding masks and distancing as attempts at control. Whereas lockdown – I share everyone’s concern about the disastrous effect they have.
Embrace the new normal, embrace Boris, Hancock, Sir Kier, Big Pharma and the unelected unaccountable WHO, and Klaus Schwab. Oh, and form a proper British queue for your Pfizer experimental (Dr Mike Yeadon) vaccine shortly to be recklessly rolled out to a grateful and expectant populace after heroic efforts to develop and test it in the shortest possible time. Yea! This isn’t about medicine, this is about politics and freedom and the upending of well-established statistical and epidemiological good practice wherever necessary to suit. (Cui bono?)
Seeing you are in ‘tuneful’ mode, you remind me of a Stan Freberg record of many, many years back. Its called Stan Freberg Meets CBS Censor (of Citizens Radio Committee). You will never listen to Ol’ Man River again without laughing.
And Stan’s Green Christmas is a must hear at this time of year!