’Tis the season to be jolly grateful if you can get through it in one piece. Here’s a five-point plan on making it to New Year
It’s useful to have a scapegoat at Christmas so mine is the industrial revolution. Yes, the Victorians were responsible for the festive fever dream of Dickensian jollity we have all internalised, but it’s those damn steam and steel barons who allowed us to escape our families most of the year. Since we stopped spending our lives confined to one room with several generations of people seemingly put on earth for the sole purpose of annoying us, we’ve lost the knack of just tolerating our nearest and dearest, I think. As a result, when Christmas rolls around, our lack of practice, deluded belief that this is the time to forge heartwarming memories and the hysterical exhortations of Yuletide end-stage capitalism combine to ensure carnage.
Because the perfect family Christmas is a lie, of course, the magic we strive to recreate is a nostalgic, eggnog-sodden amalgam of multiple Christmases, each awful in its own way (The Dead Dog One, The Norovirus One, The Disinhibited Dementia Granny One). Reality cannot compare, so we struggle to cope. I know a couple whose marriage guidance counsellor actually advised they acquire some cannabis to deal with the stress of the season (“a lot more Quality Street were consumed,” notes my correspondent, “but it was a Very Happy Christmas”).
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2V2chWq
