Our 'Chrexit' plans have been scuppered by Covid
“Lady, you’re a right old Scrooge,” declared a cab driver the other day, when he inquired what I was “doing for it”. Ah, the eternal bloody question, posed incessantly from October 1. I had shuddered: “Nothing, nada, running away, omicron allowing.” Cue my Dickensian outing. It was either that or the Grinch.
I hate Christmas. I’m an atheist, but were I religious, I can only imagine I would detest it still more. I hate the naff-ness and the nausea, the senseless expenditure leading to yet more “stuffocation”, the endless social lies and epic intergenerational wars.
My much-mourned late mother was akin to some Doctor Who alien that thrived off the bad juju of Christmas. Her first inquiry as to where we were “spending it” would be issued on the August bank holiday. From that moment, the am-dram was incessant. It was on! It was off! They were going away! No one was invited! Until, come Christmas Eve, she had us where she wanted us: broken, fit only to twitch while she insisted that she’d “never do it again”, recriminations continuing into early March.
While she was alive, I wasn’t invited for 10 years (the drama!), so used to opt out entirely and play Christmas as the ultimate duvet day. I would wake without an alarm, take a fragrant bath, slip into a fresh negligee, and prepare comfort carbs (macaroni cheese with roast potatoes and sprouts) while listening to Radio 4. Then I’d down a bottle of good red while reading a novel, and watch Doctor Who as I quaffed a saucer or two of Ruinart.
In the wake of my mother’s death, I felt freed even from this scant observation. Instead, my partner, Terence, and I travel, escape, run free. One way out would be to jet off to a non-Christian country. However, after the epic slog in the run up to the 25th, the last thing we want is the stress of long-haul. Besides, there’s no need, given that continentals put Christmas in its place – back in its box, as it were – focusing on food and friendship, rather than some grotesque consumer tack-fest.
To travel over Yule is to take advantage of “free holiday”, a dead time when no one actually notices whether one is working or not. The truly sensible would jump ship around December 15 to re-emerge mid-January, and I swear not a colleague would catch on. If they did, they’d merely follow suit, a collective exodus ensuing. A survey from 2017 found that a third of Britons long to quit the country as we approach the great glittering ghastliness. The obvious response being: only a third?
My own Christougenniatikophobia (fear of Christmas) has found us in Sicily, France, Germany and Holland on Christmas Day. In Syracuse, in 2015, we strolled about Ortygia, went for a pasta lunch, then took coffee and cannoli outside its magnificent Doric temple-turned-cathedral, sporting sunglasses against the winter sun. “What I want to know is, where do you fit in?” asked a local youth. “Are you film stars?” We felt like it. Next morning, we walked to the Paolo Orsi Archaeological Museum and its surrounding archaeological park, a place of rather more wonder than the Boxing Day sales.
In Paris, we rented an Airbnb near Notre-Dame, waking to the sound of its bells. On the day itself, Terence woke me with tiny cream cakes from the local bakery, made lunch, then we sauntered to the Palais Garnier to see the not remotely festive Iphigénie en Tauride, almost as if it were a day on which we might expect to enjoy ourselves. Amsterdam was packed with art and architecture, while even Terence’s “Remnants of the Reich” East Berlin walking tour was jollier than trad British Christmas.
This year, the plan was to return to gay Paris, in an arrondissement new to us: the IXe, or Opéra itself. Aiming to be more in the mode of the Instagram account Parisiens in Paris than the dread Emily, Terence would have wallowed in his Haussmann obsession, I in Handel’s Alcina. Alas, that option is no longer available to us, and we will be grounded like so many thwarted Francophiles.
I am consoling myself with the thought that, being at home while everyone imagines us to be away, might make for the most relaxing Yule of all. No PCR or lateral flow tests, no form-filling, and no fears of the rules changing while we are en route. Instead, a secret non-celebration full of food, fire and dog-walking. Joyeux No?l, wherever you choose to be.