the times Saturday December 4 20212Weekend
COVER AND BELOW: JOHN ANGERSON FOR THE TIMES. STYLIST: HANNAH SKELLEY. DAISY WEARS DRESS, DOLCE AND GABBANA; EARRINGS, BUTLER AND WILSON; RING, SOLANGE AT
NET-A-PORTER (COVER). DRESS, ROLAND MOURET; SHOES, MALONE SOULIERS; EARRINGS AND RING AS BEFORE (BELOW). WREATHS FROM A SELECTION AT GRAHAM AND GREENI have booked the tent, hired the space
heaters and ordered the mistletoe. I have
negotiated a playlist that will please the
bus-passers and the drum-and-bassers,
and I have experimented with beehives
and white boots (the party has a Sixties
theme). And I am apologising to my neigh-
bours right now.
Zara of Zara’s Kitchen, my lovely caterer,
sounded rather surprised when I rang her
to confirm that, yes, the party was on. “You
sound so definite. Most people are waiting
until the very last minute to confirm.”
That is the sensible thing to do, of
course, but there is nothing sensible about
having a party. It’s a completely frivolous
necessity and no amount of Zooming can
compare with the sweaty joys of a kitchen
crusher. For the first time ever, I am with
Boris, who has said let there be Christmas
parties. And Thérèse Coffey, who hasto a party where I haven’t found someone
interesting or surprising to talk to, and I
don’t think you can really say you know
someone until you have laid eyes on their
handwriting or watched them dance.
So, new variants permitting, I am unre-
pentantly ready to have a party. Cassandra
says that most people are just having “a few
people round for drinks, it sounds less
germ-ridden”.
Darren Haskell-Thomas from Marble
London, party planner to the stars, says
that he has had three new bookings this
week, but no one is calling it a party —
gathering is more popular. The Brits are
pushing ahead, only the Europeans are
pulling out. But it seems to me that if you
are going to have cocktails and cakes,
fancy dress and dancing, it’s important to
say so. Now is the time to get that tiara out
of the bank or off the shelf at Claire’s.Parties? Even a
bad one is better
than a night in
Staying in is not — and never will be — the new going
out. Let’s get this party started, says Daisy Goodwin
usually the ones up for a party, are settling
for elasticated waistbands. But as Cassan-
dra reminds me, “These days you have to
decide whether a cheese straw and a glass
of prosecco are really worth endangering
your life for.” That is one way of putting it,
and a completely valid one for anyone with
health issues that make them especially
vulnerable.
Yet there are people, and I include
myself among them, who wonder whether
a life spent on the sofa is really worth
living. There is plenty of time for box sets
in the twilight homes that are hovering on
the horizon. My eightysomething friends
and relations have been the first to RSVP;
they know the value of getting out there
while you can. Likewise the twentysome-
things for whom party is still a verb and
free alcohol is always exciting. It’s like
swimming in the sea in winter — you may
have doubts before taking the plunge, but
you never regret it afterwards.
My philosophy is to accept all invita-
tions on the basis that even a bad party is
better than a night in. There is a poem by
the wonderful Greek poet Cavafy that
sums it all up for me:
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It’s clear at once who has
the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
he goes forward in honor and self-assur-
ance.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked
again,
he would still say no. Yet that no — the
right no —
undermines him all his life.
I am sure there are lots of reasons to say
the right “no”, to hunker down, to with-
draw from the world of forced gaiety and
vacuous small talk, to eschew evenings of
warm white wine and miniature Yorkshire
puddings, but I don’t know any of them.
After the bleak midwinter of last year I
would happily go to the opening of a crisp
packet. I can’t wait to spend an evening
tottering in my heels, surrounded by
people I hardly know, talking about noth-
ing in particular. After days spent staring
at a screen I want to know all about your
daughter’s struggles with her lockdown
puppy, or the difficulties of finding emer-
alds that are green enough.
If there is a flirtatious sparkle that’s a
bonus, but I am quite happy to talk smart
motorways, so long as there are party
frocks and the warm hum of festive chat-
ter. I am a sociable animal and I am not
immune to herds. I don’t think I have beenI
was born a week before Christmas
and I usually have a party. That way
I can pretend that all the street lights
are for me. This year is what is called
a big birthday, so I thought I would
break the habit of a lifetime and send
out invitations in October — because
surely everyone would be having parties
this Christmas.
Well, that’s what I thought, but it turns
out that this year my mantelpiece, which
is usually cluttered with festive invites
(well, a few anyway) is a barren steppe.
Even though I don’t work in an office
any more I usually score the odd corporate
jolly, but not this year. No one I
know is having a party this Christmas
(or, at least, one I am invited to!). No one,
that is, except me.
It didn’t occur to me that having a party
was a foolhardy thing to do — I had one
for my children in July (with gatecrashers
high on mushrooms) and it went with a
swing (and I don’t mean an infection up-
swing). Everyone took a lateral flow test
before coming and no one got sick. But,
as my most “Cassandra”-like friend
keeps saying in her increasingly gloomy
texts, “That was the summer. It was out-
side. What about Austria?” What about
Austria? I am not having a party there, nor
am I planning on inviting the von Trapp
family (although if they decided to gate-
crash, I certainly wouldn’t turn them away
— so long as they had their lateral flow
tests, natürlich). I have been double
jabbed, boosted and, having nursed my
entire family through Covid without get-
ting ill, suspect my T cells are in good
order. And I trust my guests to take tests
before they come.
That is if they do come. As I look down
my growing list of acceptances, I get a text
from Cassandra: “Just because they say
they will come doesn’t meant that they will
— haven’t you heard of Hogo?” This
acronym turns out to be the misanthrope’s
version of that Scandinavian cashmere
socks and candles fest, hygge; Hogo means
staying at home because you can’t face
the Hassle Of Going Out. According to
Cassandra, and she heard it on Woman’s
Hour, people have got so used to being
snuggled up on the sofa in sweatpants
watching Bake Off, they can’t face the
trauma of having to struggle into Spanx
and heels and the agony of having to
stretch the resting bitch face into a daz-
zling “the fun starts here” smile.
Hogo has always been endemic among
the middle-aged men of my acquaintance,
and it’s a bad sign if women, who areMost people are
having ‘a few
friends round
for drinks’ —
it sounds less
germ-ridden
than a party
Daisy Goodwin