the times | Thursday November 26 2020 1GT 7

times

S

o this is Christmas.

Not cancelled, but also

not recommended by

healthcare professionals.

The main pillars —

turkeys, trees, telly —

are all still a go, but not

everything made the cut.

There will be no kissing under the

mistletoe this year — and that’s just

one of the many festive traditions

that I’ll be glad to see the back of.

Also on the list are...

1 Making a vegan option

Use the three-household rule to your

advantage by uninviting all plus-ones

and hangers-on from Christmas Day

celebrations. Your mother-in-law can

wince over her own dry turkey and

the teenager’s vegan boyfriend can

impose his dietary requirements on

his family for a change. Anyone for

a pig in a blanket?

2 Spending Christmas Eve on

the M...

Nothing to buoy the Christmas spirit

like packing up the car, driving for 30

minutes, then spending the next six

hours monitoring a ten-year-old’s

vitals because “someone” didn’t tether

the cast-iron casserole dish properly,

but just whacked it on top of the coats.

By the end of the journey, though, this

will be the least traumatising thing

about it, having been trumped by

blazing rows over air temperature,

near-constant use of the windscreen

cleaning fluid even though they know

it makes you feel queasy, the dog

weeing on someone’s lap, and

a stunningly bad choice of motorway

services, where there is only a pasty

stand, a Caffe Nero and an arcade.

3... or at Heathrow T

Hellish. The only thing worse than

a cavity search is a cavity search

performed by someone wearing

a Santa hat.

4 The office Christmas party

You’re either reporting someone to

human resources or being reported;

there is no third option. Sticky floors,

mucky sofas and a permeating odour

of regret are mainstays of an office

Christmas party, although if you’re

lucky you might get away with

chipping in £25 for a glass of

“bubbly”, three dough balls, a slice of

something-grey-and-unrecognisable

Wellington and a chocolate brownie

with squirty cream on top, consumed

while playing a team quiz that

assumes you actually listen when

colleagues tell you about their children

and weekends spent bouldering. The

young will take each other home,

something they will regret at 11am at

the tea station on Monday, and every

day after. The less young will take

home a sinking feeling in their

stomachs (spoiler: it’s the Wellington).

This year you’ll be invited to a Zoom

Christmas quiz instead, but you have

that lobotomy booked, remember?

Sorry to miss the fun!

5 Secret Santa

This must be the busiest time of the

year for HR, on reflection. A colleague

once bought me a Grow Your Own

Boyfriend for Secret Santa, but you

can reveal your venomous dislike for

colleagues with any variety of tat

while encouraging them to “take a

joke”. Etsy’s mug selection offers such

gems as “My job is top secret — even I

don’t know what I’m doing” and — the

2020 edition that no one asked for —

“You’re on mute!”

6 Winter sun fomo

Oh dear, looks like we’ll all be

spending January in the UK together,

doesn’t it? I feel for you, really. You

were so looking forward to spending

December talking about your

forthcoming fortnight on a beach,

replying to all invitations with, “Just

have to check it doesn’t clash with my

fortnight on a beach!” and posting

pictures of your fortnight on a beach

on Instagram. Such a shame.

7 Pret’s Christmas sandwich

Christmas leftovers are glorious, but

this apology of a sandwich is not,

especially when consumed al desko

under a blinking fluorescent light. See

also: Starbucks’s red cups and Pizza

Hut’s new chicken, bacon, stuffing and

red-wine gravy pizza. This year you

can make weekday lunches seem

festive by watching Kirstie’s Handmade

Christmas while eating a mince pie in

your slippers — a perk of WFH.

8 Carollers

Singing means spraying, and spraying

means super-spreading. Don’t even

think about it, you fa-la-la-la-lunatics.

9 Last-minute gift shopping

I could have learnt Russian by now

if I’d spent my spare hours practising

declensions, but instead I have

scrolled through every online shop

going, so buying presents should be

an early-bird doddle (and you don’t

have to pay for parking). It’s also easier

to drop hints if you can access your

gift-giver’s phone or laptop: a quick

Google search and they’ll be seeing

ads for Pierre Paulin armchairs

everywhere they look.

10 Missing deliveries

Once you’ve ordered your gifts online,

you’ll be allocated your handy eight-

hour delivery window. No problemo.

We are in. We are always in. “Sorry we

missed you” cards are a thing of the

past: I now know my posties by name,

and the Hermes man has enough

photographs of me accepting deliveries

(the new contactless signature) to

create a portfolio for my back-up

career as a relatable, everywoman

catalogue model for the Covid era.

11 Novelty knitwear

Christmas jumper day is for a

good cause, so donate your £2 at

savethechildren.org.uk, then breathe

17 things you needn’t worry about

this Christmas (No 1: vegan guests)

There’s a battle on

to save festive fun.

Hold on a minute,

says Charlie

Gowans-Eglinton,

don’t save all of it

a sigh of relief that

you won’t have to see

previously respected

colleagues with highly

flammable elf faces

stretched across their

stomachs.

12 Tree-shopping

democracy

I blame Hollywood for

the myth that tree

shopping is a magical

occasion to be shared.

It’s cold, you left it too

late and you end up

paying £60 for a tree

with a giant bite out

of the side and the

pleasure of finding

dropped needles in the

car for the next year.

Have the tree delivered

instead, and skip to the

part where you argue

over fairy light

distribution, bauble

placement and whether

tinsel is tacky (it is).

13 Decorative

one-upmanship

No need to worry about

keeping up with the

Joneses because they

can only see your front

window — beyond that, you can

decorate as little or as much as you

want and no one will be any the wiser.

Since you ask, my home is immaculate

and decorated in this year’s festive

theme, which is “Mariah Carey goes

to the Ritz for a nip of Laphroaig.”

14 Sub-par pies

Of the mince variety. Not only did we

not have to nibble our way through

the office bake-off this year (it really

isn’t amazing what you can do with

a Rice Krispie, actually, and that looks

suspiciously like a paw print), we’re

also off the hook when it comes to

eating the don’t-quit-your-day-job

homemade mince pies usually forced

upon us by neighbours, colleagues and

extended-family members.

15 Festive weight gain

I’m not saying it won’t happen, I’m just

saying you don’t need to worry about

it. If you are worrying, then enjoy

the lack of aforementioned pies and

Quality Street tins being passed

around everywhere you go. But say

you do round up that “lockdown 15” to

a cuddly Covid 19lb or an it’s-nearly-

2021 21lb? All the better for filling up

that Santa suit yourself because next

on the no-go list are...

16 Department store Santas

Bit weird, really, queueing for hours

for a picture of your child on a portly

stranger’s lap. And while your child

(or grandchild, godchild or relation)

is no doubt a cherub, other people’s

children, in the queueing scenario,

can bring out the Grinch within.

17 Making new year resolutions

No need — just use last year’s list.

a y p c f s s 1 d I t s o I l p w o p d c H i p o d p t 1 o N k J c

d b

GETTY IMAGES

My home’s

decorated

in this

year’s

festive

theme:

‘Mariah

Carey goes

to the Ritz

for a nip of

Laphroaig’